Real-Life Examples Of How Google's "Search Plus" Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/examples-google-search-plus-drive-facebook-twitter-crazy-107554 <comment><USER2> Always an interesting read (if you do search) and I while I, as a competitor, appreciate Google making it easier, I am always amazed when companies do these kinds of things.

Reminds me of when Sun killed off the Workstation product.</comment>


China builds 'world's biggest air purifier' and it seems to be working - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2128355/china-builds-worlds-biggest-air-purifier-and-it-seems-be-working <comment><USER2> So... to drop the PM2.5 amount by 15%, this tower must be removing many many tons of particulate matter every day. How is it removed from the filters they speak of? How expensive is that to do? I have some questions about the practicality.

On the other hand, I wonder if anyone's ever built a 100m placebo before. It could be a _really_ interesting university study on the placebo effect in disguise.

<comment><USER3> > many many tons of particulate matter every day

Let's do the math.

Guidelines state that the limit on PM2.5 particulates is approximately 10 micrograms per cubic meter for an annual average. Xian, where the tower was installed, is currently ([http://aqicn.org/city/xian/](http://aqicn.org/city/xian/)) under 231 ug/m^3 of pollution. The tower is supposed to process 10 million cubic meters of air per day.

        10^7 m^3 x 231 x 10^-6 g/m^3 x 10^-3 g/kg x 0.15 = 231 x 0.15 x 10^-2 =>

0.34 kg of particulate contamination removed per day. Not many tons. But someone check my math, please - that seems impossibly low, unless combustion is cleaner and generates lower quantities of PM2.5 particulates than I'm imagining. I did assume that it only removes PM2.5 contaminants, ignoring larger dust particles and PM10 pollution.

Let's also check the amount of air it should be processing. It's about 100 meters tall, and intended to cover 10 square kilometers. We'll conservatively assume that this volume represents the total quantity of air it needs to process. Ihe volume is:

       10 km^2 x 10^3 m/km x 10^3 m/km x 10 ^ 2 m = 10^8 m^3

or 100 million cubic meters, so it's intended to process one tenth of that volume per day.

The math still seems low. Micrograms per cubic meter are hard to intuit.

<comment><USER4> 0.35 kg of particulate contamination removed per day; you rounded incorrectly, but the rest of your math is right.

There's the issue that it's probably removing nearly all of the particulates from the air it actually processes, say over 90%, which works out to 2.1 kg. It doesn't reduce the PM2.5 level in the area by 90%, but only by 15%, because it's only able to process some 16% of the air in its area during whatever the relevant time interval is, which seems like a good match to your 10%-per-day.

However, you got the volume of that area wrong: it's 10⁹ m³, not 10⁸ m³. That suggests that the natural lifetime of PM2.5 particulates is closer to a week than a day.

As for jhugg's question about how the filters are cleaned, a common way to remove particulates from flue gas or indoor spaces is using electrostatic precipitators, which are flat plates at a high voltage. The voltage sticks the particulates to the plates, and when the coating is thick enough, you close the valves to stop the gas flow and vibrate the plates to unstick the dust, and it falls out the bottom of the filter into a bucket (or, say, a truck). Other systems clean the plates with water (either spray or immersion) and possibly soap or lye.

<comment><USER5> I love HN comment like this. Seems like there's an expert in everything here!

<comment><USER4> I am not an expert in air pollution control systems, or even an amateur. I don't even have an air filter installed in my house. I read some Wikipedia articles over the last couple of years, Googled, and watched some videos on YouTube (including "how-to" videos on the care and feeding of electronic air cleaners.) That doesn't make me an expert. That makes me some sort of approximation of a journalist — and if you've ever read those people writing about something you know about, you know how much they get wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please refrain from using AMP links. We need to take a stance against Googles abuse of monopoly.

<comment><USER7> Devil's advocate: Google is generous by caching AMP sites on their own servers. The only thing you can't do is to include your own invasive third party tracking (ok, you can use Google's of course), which is bad anyway. But you can still include your ad just as a <img> in the page, no JS and tracking. Like a dumb print ad. I don't really have a problem with that.

<comment><USER8> "Google is generous by storing your email on their own servers."

"Facebook is generous by storing your posts and friend lists on their own servers."

<comment><USER9> I agree

<comment><USER10> With the nonsensical sarcastic point? Or the real point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> More readable non-mobile link: [http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2128355/china...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2128355/china- builds-worlds-biggest-air-purifier-and-it-seems-be-working)

</comment><comment><USER12> I wish there was more than anecdotal evidence for this. China has very strong statistics for their pollution levels that are often recorded in their weather reports.

For a project this big, they should be able to quantify the results instead of just relying on what people say about the air :/

EDIT: I'm a dummy, although the article leaves with an anecdotal, there are some nuggets of stats "The average reduction in PM2.5 – the fine particles in smog deemed most harmful to health – fell 15 per cent during heavy pollution." & "Cao said the results were preliminary because the experiment is still ongoing. The team plans to release more detailed data in March with a full scientific assessment of the facility's overall performance."

<comment><USER13> > I wish there was more than anecdotal evidence for this.

Perhaps this will help:

[http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copern...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-5P/Sentinel-5P_brings_air_pollution_into_focus)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really like how simple this solution is. Just using the sun to heat up air and have it go up through a bunch of filters, no moving parts. It strikes me as the right way to go about it. I wonder if you could use the greenhouses for growing plants, and the rising air to run small turbines..

<comment><USER15> As far as running turbines go...

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

</comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Such a mainland solution... The air's dirty, install an air filter. There's lots of air and it's really dirty? Build a bigger air filter!

...especially if my uncle manufactures air filter membranes and needs to get rid of some extra inventory

</comment><comment><USER16> Side node: is China doing ok in terms of innovation? If yes, how come in such a regime? I would expect everything to be stuck in bureaucracy.

<comment><USER17> If anything, it goes to show representative democracy plus unrestrained capitalism is not the only way to run a modern, advanced civilization.

<comment><USER18> China a "modern, advanced civilization?" You've clearly never lived in China. China is all about the façade. And a MODERN, advanced civilization wouldn't be polluting their entire country like it was a tannery in 1758.

Taihu lake, near Suzhou, is practically radioactive. Fish in pretty much any freshwater within the entire country is toxic. I lived in China for 3 years or so and as soon as my son was born, we got the hell out -- it's a fun place, but no "modern, advanced" civilization operates like China. It's a country of mostly uneducated, superstitious peasants who suddenly got a lot of money and are kept in line with the threat of "re-education" or death. Even an artist has to fear for his life. [http://aiweiwei.com](http://aiweiwei.com)

Then there's Lui Xiaobo.

Remember, this "modern, advanced" civilization still has Traditional Chinese Medicine as a "thing." It's a complete fraud with zero scientific basis: [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional- chin...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional-chinese- medicine/)

This "modern, advanced" civilization is responsible for massive worldwide poaching to satisfy demand for quack TCM remedies: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/08/08/extinctio...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/08/08/extinction- by-traditional-chinese-medicine-an-environmental-disaster/#c42db405bd31)

Really, powdered rhino horn? That's has the chemical composition of human fingernails -- and works just as "effectively."

They still do "postpartum confinement" [http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/11/china/chinese- postpartum-c...](http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/11/china/chinese-postpartum- confinement/index.html) \-- based on pretty much nothing but old wives tales and dangerous superstition.

Then there's the atrocious human rights record: [https://www.hrw.org/world- report/2017/country-chapters/china...](https://www.hrw.org/world- report/2017/country-chapters/china-and-tibet)

I actually like China -- but the CCP isn't running a "modern, advanced civilization." They're the Beverly Hillbillies.

<comment><USER19> > They still do "postpartum confinement" > [http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/11/china/chinese- > postpartum-c...](http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/11/china/chinese- > postpartum-c..). -- based on pretty much nothing but old wives tales and > dangerous superstition.

And a short time ago Americans were electro-shocking homosexuals to try and make them straight.

> Remember, this "modern, advanced" civilization still has Traditional Chinese > Medicine as a "thing." It's a complete fraud with zero scientific basis: > [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional- > chin...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/retconning-traditional-chin..).

America has chiropractors covered under insurance, people who believe in homeopathy, and a growing culture of vaccine denial.

No culture is perfect. Not too long ago we had horribly polluted waters, and in a lot of places we still do. Have you seen the impact of pollution from pig farms[0][1]?

I'm not trying to play what-about-ism here, I am just saying that "modern, advanced civilizations" do all the things you listed.

The Chinese government is capable of undertaking massive infrastructure projects, and they do an incredible job of picking industries for government protectionism, allowing for growth of local talent. Multiple areas of technology and advanced automation are both areas where China has invested heavily in education and building a huge local talent pool. Pulling off multi- decade economic growth plans is impressive, they plotted a path from basic industry all the way to an advanced technology sector, and then executed on that plan.

That more than qualifies them as an advanced modern society.

[0][http://observer.com/2017/05/pig-waste-factory-farming- north-...](http://observer.com/2017/05/pig-waste-factory-farming-north- carolina/) [1][http://www.businessinsider.com/mishka-henners-photos-of- amer...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mishka-henners-photos-of-american- feedlots-2014-8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seems like a reasonable way to pump air through a filter. It will be interesting to see long term effects and maintenance costs (eventually the filters need to be replaced as efficiency would go down with increased air resistance in the tower).

This FastCompany article from 2013 ([https://www.fastcompany.com/2682151/5-imaginative- buildings-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/2682151/5-imaginative-buildings- that-breathe-pollution-and-clean-the-air)) had some additional concepts that could be added.

</comment><comment><USER21> >Xian can experience heavy pollution in winter, with much of the city's heating relying on coal.

Have they tried to filter directly the air at the source of pollution? For instance, placing filters on the coal heating facilities. It should be more efficient, as you wouldn't release as many particles in the air in the first place.

<comment><USER22> Article mentions coal based heating being a big culprit, which is most likely used residentially in homes and small businesses.

<comment><USER21> I thought it was a central source of coal heating, but if it's in every home, it's probably too difficult to filter then.

<comment><USER23> In city heating is typically central, in then countryside it is by home. When I visited Tianjin in 1999, however, the apartment I was staying at had a coal furnace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Edit: as pointed bellow it's using filters. Sorry didn't see that

If I understand correctly this "air purifier" is just shooting polluted air up, bringing cleaner air from above.

That sounds like a very short term solution, but it's interesting

<comment><USER14> "The hot air then rises through the tower and passes through multiple layers of cleaning filters."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I couldn't help but think of the book "The Water Knife". In the book it is the the Chinese that build massive liveable spaces that recycle the water and purify the air. Just a small step in that direction.

<comment><USER26> Or the Two Rivers solar updraft tower in Suarez' "Freedom TM".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't see Humanity becoming less destructive on the environment, so this represents our future. It would be nice if an outside source could verify its effectiveness

<comment><USER28> It'll be much better when/if the third world poor countries enact similar pollution policies as the Western developed world has. Have faith.

<comment><USER29> The "Western developed" world uses more energy per capita than most developed countries (the gulf states being an exception), with the US having one of the highest energy consumption per capita ratings.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Has it not been completely built? The article features a few pictures of it under construction and then an artist's impression of how it would look.

<comment><USER12> They are building several towers, the project should be completed in march

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This may sound like a naive question, but how does this compare to say, trees?

<comment><USER23> Trees don't do much for PM2.5. They are a reasonable solution for dust storms, which do generate lots of (but not all) PM10.

<comment><USER31> Follow up, can you define much here? I am just interested in this, I read this paper as a primer to my own question, and it seems that with proper city and road planning combined with the effect trees have locally on the air quality it seems we could have noticeable improvement, especially during the leafy seasons.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223101...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231016307336)

<comment><USER23> Trees can help with carbon, but we are talking about small particles here. I guess they could trap them or something, but not on the scale of a typical polluted day in say Beijing. Anyways, in northern china, this wouldn't be very workable as the pollution season corresponds to leafless tree season (and the trees turn a dreary brownish grey due to dust).

<comment><USER31> Correct my understanding here where I am wrong - In my mind, if a leaf of a tree or any vegetation photosynthesizes, it is pulling in air (dirty air by your account which is why those leaves are brown) By the very virtue of that fact, it would be pulling in those small particles as well. The paper I referenced states that this happens to an extent, which is why trees during the leafy season are more effective at reducing PM2.5 than when they are bare.

<comment><USER23> You are probably right, but a better solution would be to create breeze ways that would allow wind to blow out the pollution more easily. These could be coupled with forests, of course. These cities have plenty of trees, but they aren't newrly enough and anyways winter is the worst season.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wish there was some technical background of what such a "purification tower" does. If they found a genuinely innovative way of purifying air and dumping the toxins and by products sensibly, that is mazing for all of us kudos to them! However, if they tried to push the problem away by shooting polluted air away and sucking in fresher air, then it sucks.

<comment><USER33> It says in the article that

>"The hot air then rises through the tower and passes through multiple layers of cleaning filters."

Meaning you just have to clean the filters

<comment><USER34> I think we should find a better way to heat ourselves without burning coal, because this air purifier will reach a limit in the future and we will be back on step one.

<comment><USER35> To reduce air pollution the Chinese government forbad heating with coal in some regions and installed gas pipes there. It turned out they severely underestimated the spike in demand in winter and the rising gas prices. Residents illegally switched back to coal heating because heating with gas was 2-3x more expensive. Later, the government officially sanctioned coal heating for the time being. So the Chinese government tries to get away from coal but it's not as easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe also an attempt to test solar updraft power generation ?</comment>


Ask HN: In terms of the economy, are we any better off than in Sept of 2006? - <AUTHOR>

The Nasdaq is currently at the level it was in September of 2006. In 2006, due to dividend trading and loose regulation, low interest and great speculation in the housing markets, we were driving 80 miles an hour towards an economic cliff.
.
It is now 4 years later. We just printed a bunch of money to bail out the banks. We have lowered interest rates rock bottom.
.
My question: Have the laws changed regarding dividend trading? Has any thing changed regarding all the other factors that led to this?
.
My mom is getting a lump sum of money from her pension, she wants to buy a second home. Isn't this a big gamble. In another 2-6 years isn't the market going to crash but only larger?
.
HN what are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> If we could answer this with any degree of certainty, we'd all be rich. ;-)

I think there're some areas that we're better off in. Banks are no longer making those crazy subprime loans. People are saving again. A lot of the "walking dead" companies that were going to go bankrupt have gone bankrupt. Lame web startups that are nothing but Rails or Django frontends aren't getting started. Pretty cool web startups that actually take use of some technology enablers (say, cloud computing and mobile) are getting started.

In other areas, we're worse off. Now, people aren't just losing their houses because they should never have bought them, they're losing them because they lost their jobs. There's a shitload of extra money out there that's bound to come out as inflation sometime. The government has added something like $2T of extra debt. We've lost the confidence of the international community, who we need to finance our debt. The government has basically blown its wad as far as fiscal and monetary stimulus goes.

So I dunno. A lot of the excesses that led to this have been trimmed, but things are so much more fragile now that it takes a lot less to set us off on a downward spiral.

<comment><AUTHOR> "So I dunno. A lot of the excesses that led to this have been trimmed, but things are so much more fragile now that it takes a lot less to set us off on a downward spiral."

What I worry about is that if no laws have changed, soon as people start to feel safe again the Banks will start making sub prime loans and dividend trading will back to where it was.

Is the only thing stopping this personal responsibility? Companies are going to prey on the uninformed, do the same things they did in the first half of this decade and hope to get out before it collapses again?</comment></comment>


Programmers, DIY Types Embrace Soft, Hackable Chumby  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/news/2008/04/chumby_hackers <comment><USER2> Why was I not informed of this earlier!</comment>


Google Researcher Exposes Flaws In Sophos Software, Slams Antivirus Industry - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/08/04/google-researcher-exposes-flaws-in-sophos-software-slams-antivirus-industry/ <comment><USER2> Firstly, you can find the associated paper here:

<http://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/Sophail.pdf>

I actually find the technical details behind how the antivirus engine works far more fascinating than the flaws in said engine. As Tavis said, most antivirus companies don't publish details about their engines, so, flawed or not, learning how Sophos does it is interesting.

<comment><USER3> Me too. I am actually reasearching heuristic engines and I can assure you that there isn't a research field so mysterious and jealously protected as antivirus technologies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Headline: "Google Researcher Exposes Flaws In Sophos Software, Slams Antivirus Industry"

Inside: "Ormandy works by day as a security engineer at Google but said he was representing only himself at the conference and that his research had been done on his own time, _without the company's knowledge or support._ " (my emphasis)

I sense...Bullshit Title Tacked on by Asshole Managing Editor.

<comment><USER5> The interesting question is whether Ormandy would research or publish flaws in a Google product.

<comment><USER6> Um, yes?

[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/04/stable- upda...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/04/stable-update- security-fixes.html)

[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/stable- chan...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/stable-channel- update_28.html)

[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/09/stable- and-...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/09/stable-and-beta- channel-updates.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "argued that it would be unlikely that malware writers would tailor their code to exploit flaws in Sophos given that it controls only 10% of the enterprise market"

It seems to be a ridiculous argument to make. This would still not rule out targeted attacks.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it's absolutely inane.

Marketing front: _"The best antivirus software."_

Damage control: _"Don't worry, we're only 10%! Look at someone else, they have more market so it's more dangerous for them to have problems like these!"_

<comment><USER9> It's the same argument some people use when claiming Macs are more secure than Windows machines.

<comment><USER10> I've used it in the past as an argument for why there are less exploits for Macs, which is different. That is, security is an inherent property, whereas the presence of exploits is a function of that security and interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "If you examine a system's security and it's weakened, that system is flawed," says Ormandy.

With things like encryption schemes, definitely. But is this true for detecting malicious behavior? If you show your criteria for finding it, doesn't that tell malware writers how to avoid detection?

If I'm wrong - if openly saying "there are our criteria for identifying bad behavior" won't help people avoid it - then shouldn't Google release its criteria for identifying spam sites? I don't see Ormandy advocating for that.

</comment><comment><USER12> The author of this paper seems to have a reputation for irresponsible disclosure (just google his name) and was called out on it by, you guessed it, Sophos: [http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/06/15/tavis-ormandy- ple...](http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/06/15/tavis-ormandy-pleased- website-exploits-microsoft-zeroday/)

<comment><USER13> Which is talked about in the article

<comment><USER12> Oops, didn't see page 2.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Am I being self deluded about my startup? - <AUTHOR>

Hi hacker news, this is my story, I'll keep this short.
For the past year or so, since graduating from a CS degree, I've decided that I would give a go at exploring some ideas I've had with some friends (3).
Some with a sound business model, others not so much, but still great ideas.
My friends are all employed, and have been for years. They all have above average technical and executional capacities occupying well regarded positions within both their day job and the local hackers scene.
Our main problem is the capacity to finish a project given the time my colleagues have at their disposal. None of them is willing to give up their day jobs without some form of guaranty.
We have had potential clients and have made several prototypes for these clients in the hopes of landing a major contract, we have only succeeded once by selling ourselves short. (It is coming soon, but at this point we are being ransomed by our client)
We do have a plan but for the most part we are failing to succeed. I can detect several problems, from our lack of business knowledge to our non-existent self promotion, as well as failure to abide to responsibilities in a consistent manner, in between others. I do demand more for my colleagues, but they are only able/willing to give so much.
Only my name is connected to this company, as my colleagues contracts prevent them from being associated with any outside project. I'm at the breaking point of my mental and financial capacities. I still don't want to give up as I've never lost a fight in my life, so I'm asking the hacker community for your advice. Is there any hope for this team? What alternatives should I explore?
PS: I understand this is far too little information and a very dumbed down version of the reality. I would go about writing a 66 page essay about our failures and accomplishments. But I imagine that would discourage most of you from reading this.
PS2: note that zerostartup is not the name of our company. <comment><USER2> The give way here is that you call these folks your friends -- and while it's good to have friends that's different than "partners". What you need are partners so you need to take the first steps and meet people with similar interests (in a business sense) outside your immediate circle. And for what it's worth maybe look for those skills that you're lacking like business experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, i have followed your advised, have already reached out for a couple of people through email, and going to see what kinda of social events/workshops are coming up in my area. Once again thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was in the same situation more or less 2 years , i wont say i have any solution for lack of interest but in my case every one who wanted to cling to a stable job while trying to test waters with my startup did eventually leave it . So i have learnt to stick with people who share my passion rather than treating it as a "side project" .

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I ask you if you do software as a service or have any kind of client acquisition. If so, how did you went about doing it? We have this premise that we must have some portfolio in order to land some 'big' clients and publicize our work, however as I've said, it has been hard to put something finished and representative of our quality.

<comment><USER3> "software as service"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it was Gandhi(or maybe John Lennon) who said:

 _Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions._

</comment><comment><USER5> (Based on the little you've written here...) You sound passionate, but your friends don't.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to seem unfair, they've all putted more or less work, with more or less enthusiasm, especially one, which has gone several weekdays nights and weekends without sleep, hacking away with me. We have been through ups and downs, and they could have all given up, but they haven't. Ultimately they are all my friends and may be afraid of letting me down. The truth is that they do not feel the burden as i do, nor their name or their finances is at stake. So I am at loss here as well. Thank you for time :)

<comment><USER3> imho , having heart-to-heart talk where every risk and payout is on table , helps .

<comment><AUTHOR> We did have a very calm conversation a couple of days ago. The options is either we get someone willing to work full-time with equity or I get a full time job, and do this part-time. The later being the same as giving up for me. So I decided to go all out, and ask for help to see what other alternatives there are, basically what should I do to fix this and make it economically viable as soon as possible. I appreciate your response, thk you!

<comment><USER6> Don't think of switching to part-time as giving up, its a viable strategy. One, in brings money in the door. Two, it gives you time to step back and get your mind working on other things. Both of those are invaluable. Also, if you can support yourself and work on your start-up part time, that's a recipe for success. It might be slower, but at least you won't go all out and then run out of money and fail because of a lack of capital.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Localization Horror Story: It Could Happen To You (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://search.cpan.org/dist/Locale-Maketext/lib/Locale/Maketext/TPJ13.pod?#A_Localization_Horror_Story:_It_Could_Happen_To_You <comment><USER2> Localisation is one of several cases where I've come to the conclusion that frameworks that are supposed to help you end up doing more harm than good. What you really want is to express a bunch of functions that conform to a common interface: you pass in a number of files and a number of directories and you get back a user-facing string.

But we already have a very well-optimised system for expressing functions: whatever programming language we're actually working in. We already have the concept of a bundle of related functions that implements a particular polymorphic interface: a class.

Make an interface that represents what you need each translation - that is, language implementation - to provide. Write implementations of that interface, in collaboration with your translators (if your language doesn't let you write code in a way that a reasonably intelligent translator can read and verify, if not write, get a better language). Less awkward than gettext, and far more effective.

<comment><USER3> Many translators aren't comfortable with editing source code. They want to get a file, e.g. in XLIFF format [1], which they can then load into their translation management system, and then use a GUI or web based tool to enter the translations for each string, and then at the end export the updated file and send it back to the developers. Plus, the translation management system makes it easy to keep track of progress (what % of strings have been translated so far), automate review (require each translation to be signed off by a second translator), etc – but, translation management systems can't import/export source code, but they often can import/export message catalogs.

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

<comment><USER4> I wonder if you could create some kind of domain-specific language that would be easier for a translator to interact with, without said translator needing to understand the nuances of the underlying programming language, or deal with anything more complicated than non-nested if/case statements.

<comment><USER5> The ICU project does that: [http://userguide.icu- project.org/formatparse/messages](http://userguide.icu- project.org/formatparse/messages)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder, are issues like these easier to manage with sentences structured like: "Number of foos scanned: 1", or "Number of foo/bar scanned: 3/10"? I know it at least makes the plural issue go away for English (as both 1/2 work with a colon).

<comment><USER7> This is a popular trick, but it doesn't work well with more than one parameter, and reads unnatural in many languages anyway.

<comment><USER8> It is equally unnatural in all languages, therefore the best possible solution. It is worse than many impossible solutions, but they are, you know, impossible.

And, people have become used to it, so for younger people it seems perfectly normal; and everybody who hates it either doesn't use computers, or will die soon enough.

Since it does not actually hasten their death (or deaths -- a fine point), it is the clear winner.

<comment><USER7> >It is equally unnatural in all languages, therefore the best possible solution.

I don't see what logic connects statements before, and after "therefore", sorry.

<comment><USER8> Emphasis is on the word "possible". Once you rule out all the impossible solutions, the solitary one that remains is definitively the best.

<comment><USER7> Other solutions do exist, and it certainly means they are possible. There are likely solutions which not yet written in code, but possible anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apple's Stringsdict approaches this exact problem, though unfortunately first- party documentation is limited. It's a pretty mature mechanism and yes pretty freely within apple's own frameworks. See "plural and gender support" here:

[https://www.objc.io/issues/9-strings/string- localization/#Pl...](https://www.objc.io/issues/9-strings/string- localization/#Plural%20and%20%Gender%20Support)

</comment><comment><USER10> It seems like Mozilla Fluent is a more sophisticated and modern attempt to solve these problems. It is still very new but works with browser and node javascript.

</comment><comment><USER11> 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890935)

2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2095334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2095334)

</comment><comment><USER3> See also the "Plural-Forms" documentation in the GNU gettext manual – [https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Plural...](https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Plural- forms.html) – which also talks about supporting languages with much more complex pluralisation rules than English (particularly Slavic languages and Arabic)

<comment><USER5> This is the ICU solution to it: [http://userguide.icu- project.org/formatparse/messages](http://userguide.icu- project.org/formatparse/messages)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm pleasantly surprised whenever a website translated from English knows when "comment" or "reply" is a verb or a noun.

</comment><comment><USER13> (1999)

<comment><USER11> Added. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Sounding the Alarm: Now Is the Time to Be a Cockroach - <AUTHOR> http://www.erica.biz/2018/cockroach/ <comment><USER3> The article fails to articulate a specific reason for a market failure besides:

1) The market is really good right now and has had a long run so we must be at the top.

2) An appeal to their own authority for having "trained myself to recognize the top".

This comes across as a scare clickbait piece devoid of substance. That's not to say we won't have a market failure in the near future, but without a clear rational, this specific article is junk.

It's good to run a cash flow positive company, it's good to have 6 months of savings and low debt, but please post something more substantive.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, to a point.

Having been through several more recessions, since the mid 70s, all have been different. Different symptoms, different causes, different sectors.

\+ 1970s - Oil crisis & OPEC

\+ 1980s - Deliberate govt policies and adoption of monetarism

\+ 1990s - ERM, Black Monday, US S&L

\+ 2002 - dot Com bust, post y2k contraction

\+ 2008 - Global banking crisis

The nearest I've seen to being able to "recognise the top" is some young person, usually looking too young to drive, turning up on national TV financial news explaining why "this time it's different", why the boom will continue, or why the property market isn't overheated. This is usually a clear sign that the economy is now having a Loony Tunes moment, in mid-air and not yet noticing there's no ground any more.

<comment><USER5> Interestingly, I haven't seen that irrational exuberance about the economy as a whole in a long time. Perhaps for specific sectors, like mobile in 2013 or Bitcoin last December (both of which turned out to be market tops). But in general people seem incredibly pessimistic today, with none of the optimism about everything that characterized the late 90s or even the Web 2.0 boomlet from 2005-2007. People have been predicting a (further) financial crash since the bottom of the market in 2009.

I wonder if that's a sign that the current boom still has a while to go.

<comment><USER4> Post 2008 has been very odd. The post recession growth phase was more like becoming bored of too long a bust than actual growth as seen previously. Some areas and sectors barely seem out of recession even now. Especially with the added pressure brought by austerity. In a lot of ways we don't yet seem done with the causes of 2008.

The top could be much harder to find without hindsight. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This alarm has been sounded every year since at least as far back as the FB IPO. "We must be at the top!" "This is unsustainable!" "How could CompanyX be worth $NN billion? We are in a bubble!"

One year the person will be right and after the fact we will call him/her a genius for seeing it. All the other people making this prediction so far have been wrong and we have forgotten that they even made the prediction.

Same happened during the housing bubble. I distinctly remember predictions of doom in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. The 2007 guy ended up being right.

<comment><USER7> To be fair this is addressed in the article: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent," John Maynard Keynes wisely said. Timing the market is extraordinarily difficult.

<comment><USER8> > Timing the market is extraordinarily difficult.

It's doubly difficult because you have to be right twice. If you're lucky enough to have called the top, you have to get lucky again and know when the bottom is. If you buy back in on a dead cat bounce, you're still going to lose a bunch of money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I do light manufacturing in Arizona. In the last six months the prices of steel have basically doubled. My #1 material input now costs twice as much, and to add insult to injury, it is now becoming very hard to get in some cases.

Last week we were scrambling to find 1/4 steel plate. A common common material. Its as rare as finding bread in a supermarket, its one of those staples that you never expect to see shortages of. And last week we had a lot of trouble getting it.

I had dinner with tubing salesperson this week. He was complaining that all the fancy DOM and high strength thin wall was in short supply - and this is where most of his commission based pay comes from. We don't use that much DOM, but we have noticed the price doubled this year.

Another friend sells a machine which uses hydraulic parts. He can get all the hose he wants, but nobody has any fittings. His suppliers of hydraulic cylinders are all out of stock and not expecting shipments until November. One supplier told him that he laid off his whole staff since there was nothing to sell and he wasn't sure if he could cover rent let alone employees until November.

The tariffs have caused a two-fold reaction; industrial customers with money in the bank have purchased 6 months or a year worth of stuff instead of a months worth of stuff, while suppliers offshore have stopped shipping because they don't know what the price will be by the time it arrives in port. Since the deal is struck before the ship leaves, what happens if a 25% tariff is added? So they ship nothing and wait.

The actual tariff itself is not the main issue, it is the market forces reaction to it. No USA based suppliers can pick up the slack, and nobody I knew of was hedged against a sudden tariff being applied to their main inputs.

Blue collar workers will get laid off and the effects will ripple through the economy. This crash will be different from the last, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.

I have no strategy other than avoiding new spending on machines and being very slow to add new hires. Your industry segment may vary tremendously, time will tell.

I am moving to a new factory this month, my electrician is harvesting all the conduit and panels, because they have gone up 130% this year he tells me. I am in fear of the invoice.

</comment><comment><USER10> A lot of this advice (pay down high-interest debt first, have an emergency fund) is reasonable no matter what the market conditions are.

But the common wisdom is that "time in the market beats market timing." Since these boom-and-bust cycles tend to happen over 7-10 year periods, and you really can't predict when they'll happen exactly, I think a market-related investment can be rational at any point in the cycle, as long as it's considered untouchable for ten years.

<comment><USER11> Yes. If you dollar-cost-average into funds (e.g. invest the same dollar amount every month), you will automatically buy more shares when the market is low and fewer when the market is high. Long term this is exactly what you want to do, and it doesn't depend on being able to predict price movement.

I even buy gasoline this way, because prices at the pump seem to change almost randomly. I buy $25.00 at a time. So I buy more when the price is low and less when the price is high.

<comment><USER12> > I even buy gasoline this way, because prices at the pump seem to change > almost randomly. I buy $25.00 at a time. So I buy more when the price is low > and less when the price is high.

At the risk of a joke flying right over my head, I'll ask how this works. Isn't your gas usage mostly inelastic? Are you going to drive to work less or to the supermarket less because your tank is almost empty due to gas prices being higher? If you're thinking about planning a road trip, do you say "nah, only got half a tank of gas" due to your $25 not buying you as much? Wouldn't it be easier to just look at the price of gas and decide based on that?

<comment><USER13> It works if $25 of gas lasts long enough to get to a different price (harder at a bad price), and your tank has sufficient room to hold $25 of gas (harder at a good price). Those constraints make it worse than real dollar cost averaging, but it should still work.

You can do better if you can predict gas prices but that's sort of the point of DCA - it's a strategy that works without insight.

Edit: this strategy has a higher sample rate when gas prices are bad. This causes a problem if prices are temporally correlated, which they are, unless the sample distance is large enough that the price has enough time to become completely randomized, which is a big ask.

<comment><USER14> > a strategy that works without insight

Doesn't work if gas price changes are log-normally distributed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Point taken and I agree with the advice. That said, you never know what kind of downturn this will be. 2001 was very different than 2008. The GFC was a credit-driven crash and took a long time to unwind, during which all of the scared money went splashing into tech so despite her narrative, 2008 was not a recession for many people in the tech industry. Developers didn't get hit at all and there was plenty of VC money sloshing around.

The next downturn will (probably, maybe) be a normal run-of-the-mill Fed move based on raising rates to cool off inflation. That probably _will_ affect startups. Still, you never know and it always pays to have a bunch of liquid cash—that's never bad advice.

<comment><USER16> Having been there in 2008 (but not 2001) I will say that 2008 did hit developers a little bit: a number of companies (including big ones like Google) had hiring freezes for about 6 months, and investment dried up starting in early 2008 and lasting until nearly the end of 2008. It looked scary for a little bit, even for developers. (Though of course nothing like the rest of the country.)

Starting in late 2008 it was all rainbows and ponies again.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, you weren't there in 2001 if you think a 6 month hiring freeze is a hit :)

<comment><USER18> How long were the hiring freezes in 2001?

<comment><USER19> Picture SOMA with 50% office vacancy. Literally landlords would give you an office for free just to keep people from vandalizing it. And this went on in 2001-2003. The recovery of tech took a really really long time.

I miss the tech crash. So many great people were floating around with nothing to do. It was a good time to be starting something.

<comment><USER20> This isn't the SOMA I remember back in the day. Even if that estimate is accurate, "SOMA" was barely a thing. Now SOMA is literally south of market, and a 50% vacancy would be quite different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful." - Warren Buffett

I'm a bit more sanguine than the article (No one wants another GFC, and governments will go to ludicrous measures to avoid same), but it does seem to me that the party can't go on too much longer. I didn't see the 2001 crash coming, but saw the 2008 crash coming, and mostly moved out of its way. If you want a window into the world of financial news and predictions, I find Bill McBride at Calculated Risk [0] to be one of the better prognosticators from the wide menu of prognosticators available.

[0] [http://calculatedriskblog.com/](http://calculatedriskblog.com/)

<comment><USER22> Alot of the party seems to have been concentrated in a few tech stocks - <USER2> usual FANG suspects, Microsoft, some newer IPOs, and a bunch of unicorn private companies.

It seems to me that one possible outcome would be for that rather localized party to end with valuations there returning to sustainable levels, while the rest of the market is less affected.

<comment><USER23> FAANG and most other tech valuations have grown enormously over the last 10 years, but they've roughly followed the growth of their revenue streams and potential monetization opportunities. There may be some short term corrections, but the notion that the majority of risk in the current economy is concentrated in FAANG and some tech IPOs seems overly simplistic and probably just wrong.

The GFC was a result of individuals taking on massive amounts of debt in aggregate. Corporate America has similarly taken on a lot of debt over the last decade for buy backs and growth. As the author of the article notes, the last 10 years have been great for cheap debt. Negative balances are still a risk and rates are going up. The companies taking on the most risk in terms of debt are for the most part not traditional tech. Think Chevron, GE, and other industrial and energy companies. I'd conclude that the majority of the economic risk is in fact not concentrated in FAANG or even most of tech, but elsewhere in the economy.

That doesn't mean some tech companies won't get caught in the storm. I think we could very easily see a couple mid-size players go the way of Yahoo (the Snaps and Ubers).

<comment><USER24> >The companies taking on the most risk in terms of debt are for the most part not traditional tech. Think Chevron, GE, and other industrial and energy companies.

You mean, precisely what would be considered 'traditional tech' in any sane world? :P

Industrial and energy companies have a much larger and more important impact on the economy than information technology.

We live in the strange topsy turvy world where 'information technology' has somehow been narrowed to "that guy who fixes your computer and administrates the servers" and 'tech' narrowed to mean what 'information technology' should.

<comment><USER5> It's because growth has been concentrated in software for a decade or two, and people only pay attention to growth.

It's actually more absurd than you note: "tech" today means "Internet tech", and people have largely forgotten that less than a generation ago IBM, HP, Sun, Oracle, Intel, AMD, and Microsoft were all "tech" companies. (You'd have to go back two generations for Chevron and GE to be "tech".) But that's the nature of psychology. Everything that was around when you were a kid is just part of the natural order of things, while the only new and exciting technology is the stuff you just heard of in the last year or two.

(It's pretty likely the pendulum will shift again in a year or two, and FAANG will no longer be tech, which will be reserved for crypto[currency - this is another good example, where if you're > 30 'crypto' means 'encryption' while if you're < 30 it means 'cryptocurrency'], robotics, self-driving cars, drones, and AI.)

<comment><USER25> I find it fascinating that your glib list of "cool new tech stuff" \- cryptocurrency, robotics, self-driving cars, drones, and AI, seems to have a huge characteristic blind spot.

There's a major industry that for some reason people don't mention these days when they are imagining where the future is coming from, and I find it entirely inexplicable that it just doesn't register.

If I told you what it is, you probably would find it too obvious in retrospect, so I won't. I am over 30 BTW. And no, it's not green energy.

<comment><USER26> My guess is you're talking about biotech/medicine/health. This is the next sector poised to have transformative growth over the next 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> >Get credit while the economy is good

So much this. If you don't have many credit cards I would highly recommend going out and getting a few right now. I went from $0 to $30,000 in available credit in a month, and my score jumped 100 points. The offers are crazy. It's standard these days to get 0% for 18 months, no fee, and 50,000 bonus points. They are literally paying you $500 to use their card for a year at 0%. As long as you're smart enough to never carry a balance it's literally free money. I've made over $1000 in bonuses this year on top of cash back, just by rotating my regular daily spending over 3 different new cards.

<comment><USER28> Can you recommend a card or two?

<comment><USER29> Check out /r/churning for more info than you ever wanted.

<comment><USER30> Yes, this! Opening credit cards now (but not using them, beyond the initial minimum spend that's required to get your points) is a good idea. But before you jump into the pool, read about the tricks and gotchas, such as Chase and their "5/24 rule".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Sound advice(s). I'm in a unique position where I'm straddling both tech and media. One great indicator of a coming trouble is marketing. When you see budget cuts or downright stops in producing commercials and ad space spending... then you know it's coming, in fact it's already there then. It has been a true canary in the mine so far. I haven't seen that happening yet this time around, but once it starts it's cascading fast.

</comment><comment><USER32> >I closely watched the financial news during the last two economic expansions and contractions, and for the last 3 months I've seen the same indicators I saw at the top of those two expansions.

Anyone know what those signals are? A lot of 'end is nigh' articles I've read have more details. Is it just too much growth in the stock market? Debt? Speculation?

<comment><USER27> >Anyone know what those signals are? A lot of 'end is nigh' articles I've read have more details. Is it just too much growth in the stock market? Debt? Speculation?

Keep an eye on total consumer debt levels, and more importantly debt-to- income. We've already surpassed the absolute peak value of consumer debt load from 2008 [0], but debt-to-income is still _ok_ for now. When that starts to change we're probably in trouble.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-consumer-debt- keeps-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-consumer-debt-keeps- skyrocketing-2018-2)

<comment><USER33> In this case because inflation marches steadily onward I would expect total consumer debt levels to surpass those from 2008 at some point. You need more money now than you did 10 years ago to buy the same things. If the ratio changes, that would seem to be a more reliable indicator because it means people are closer to unsustainable levels of debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So if I'm interviewing with some large companies and a handful of startups (less than 20 people), it seems like the larger companies might be a better move for the next 5 years.

<comment><USER35> Isn't that always the case? Unless the startups are paying you (in actual cash, not monopoly money) way more than the large company would, which isn't usually what happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Make sure you have deep social links and honour both sides of the deal, giver and getter. Social connectedness is strongly linked to good outcomes

</comment><comment><USER37> Many have (rightly) pointed out that this article is devoid of articulating a good reason why the market is at the top right now, and hence, why you should alter your behaviour right now.

Nonetheless, it does outline two key points from my perspective:

1\. Saving enough money for unpredictable events. While I wouldn't "put it away as cash" for everything, having an emergency fund that can sustain you for 6-12 months is a good idea. Emergency fund usually means liquid - so cash or a savings account (despite the low interest rate) is your best bet - irregardless of what other investments you may have.

2\. More importantly, I would say that this article is a great example of how the environment that one grows up in can vastly change affect their world views. I entered the workforce not too long before the Great Recession of 2008 began.

Seeing my initial retirement fund returns go extremely negative (> -40% for 2008) right at the beginning made me question the "conventional" investment advice to just contribute/DCA into index funds and not look at it. Of course, it didn't help that my first employer went bankrupt in 2009.

I haven't developed such a bearish sentiment as the author of this article, (continue to invest in index funds, with a mix that matches my risk profile) but nonetheless remain extremely skeptical that this bull market is some new normal. Thankfully, I'm in a much better position now (work for a big tech company), but I can see a marked difference between my outlook and those of my coworkers who entered the workforce much more recently.

There are many who've only been working since 2012, and many of them see no reason why you'd want to (immediately) sell the RSUs/equity the company gives you as part of compensation, unless you needed to spend the cash. An argument against this was particularly hard during the bull market of 2017 where equity prices (especially big tech) were essentially just a sloped upward line.

I try to tell them it's about risk management/risk mitigation, but my impression is that most people overestimate their risk tolerance until something bad happens.

<comment><USER25> "Seeing my initial retirement fund returns go extremely negative (> -40% for 2008) right at the beginning made me question the "conventional" investment advice to just contribute/DCA into index funds and not look at it."

Psychology differs. I got my first job with a 401k in 2007, and I had no problem whatsoever investing as much as possible as the market declined. Hey, stocks are on sale, right? But temperamentally, I get an intense desire to cash out as the market goes _up_. When I was a kid, someone told me you haven't made money until you've sold at a profit. Luckily, the fact that it was a 401k meant I couldn't cash out without switching jobs.

I think a large part of dealing with risk and money management is accepting the fact of your own psychology and biases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Even a profound market meltdown should not cause you to change your strategy unless you need your money really soon.

Look at the meltdown in 2000. If you were thirty years old and sold, you might have patted yourself on the back for a while...but assuming you are reserving most of this money for retirement when you are over sixty, you would have to either time a re-entry in the market, or give up 3x gains since.

The only people who should be changing course due to a correction are people who need their money soon.

If you are in your thirties now, the DJIA will probably be 50k+ by time you retire. Does it really matter if it goes to 15k first?

<comment><USER39> It all comes down if you believe in timing the market.

I know that the best advice is to not time the market, and simply invest in the long term, riding through the market depressions.

That being said, a couple of my friends managed to successfully time the market for 2000 and 2008. Basically, they remove their money more or less 8-10 years after the end of the last depression, and add it back in as soon as it looks like it is going to go up again.

I believe it is more luck than skills though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Pay off your cars. Pay off your phones. Stop buying new cars and phones.

This made me laugh. Such universal and timeless good advice.

</comment><comment><USER40> Having a 6 months saving account is a smart move regardless of market conditions.

</comment><comment><USER41> This sounds Nietzsche's view of 'slave morality'. It's actually in fashion to say you invest in or do boaring businesses so this isn't really all that controversial. However, like time, there's an arrow of technology and there's a reason VCs are investing in sexy startups. For instance, AI is sexy because it really will be transformational, unlike whatever today's latest fashion trends are.

Corporate R&D for S&P 500 in 2018 is estimated at around $325b — compare that to the $65b invested in U.S. VC in 2017. As corporates realize R&D is hard and see Less and Less ROI they will continue to shift more of their budget to acquisitions which effectively means we should see a large increase in VC spending. They'll have to pay a premium for picking winners. In 10 years we'll look back at today and ask why VCs were not investing more in tech because that was obviously where the opportunity is until we see transporter beams, jarvis, and molecular fabricators.

</comment><comment><USER42> The current S&P 500 P/E ratio is around 24. That is historically overvalued (the median is around 14.7, mean 15.7). Yet the new normal might be a P/E of around 20 (though who pays 20X one year of earnings for a business unless it is growing like crazy).

Of course the last time we were at the mean was at the bottom of the 2010 recession.

Just to compare in the 2001 recession we hit a P/E of around 45, during the 2010 recession we hit a P/E of 65.

Obviously it is a lagging indicator as the ratio goes through the roof because earnings drop through the floor.

The market can go sideways for a long time (and has historically). During the obama years that is essentially what happened. Sideways with a slight increase actually feels like a pretty decent economy (especially after 2010).

</comment><comment><USER43> I thought we hit the top last year but it just keeps going. Never the less I agree with this advice.

<comment><USER44> Yes, because the advice is sound advice, no matter the circumstances. Ironically, the fact that she's using _timing_ makes a sound advice laughable in my eyes:

\- NOW you should stop spending investor's money! \- Why not two years ago? Why not in 2025? Are we going to burst _anytime soon_ like next month or decade?

On a more serious note, one thing that might affect greatly the world economy is the breaking of the common European currency, the EURO. We might be closer that scenario than most realise. I'm referring to the Italian elections and what could they bring upon Europe, should the Italians decide to have a referendum on the Euro.

The best case scenario would be for Brussels to suddenly democratise itself and for European integration to continue, but with the rise of the far-right all over Europe, I don't see that happening.

<comment><USER45> > should the Italians decide to have a referendum on the Euro.

About the only way for an Eurozone member to leave is to leave the EU (since that's a condition for Eurozone membership and the Eurozone has no leaving procedure of its own in its bylaws).

They will at least wait to see how it turns out for the UK before trying anything like that.

<comment><USER44> Why should they? UK's case is totally different case.

I don't think that exiting the currency means exiting the union.

<comment><USER45> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_Eurozone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_Eurozone)

"Other analysts[10] have submitted that there are basically three ways of exiting the Eurozone: by leaving and subsequently rejoining the EU, whereby a renewed membership in the European Union would be possible only when economic convergence had been achieved; through a Treaty amendment; or through a European Council decision. The amendment would involve an extension of Article 50[11] of the European Treaty that would set out the process for exiting the euro."

1\. "Leaving the EU" is what the UK is doing right now (and Italy would want to wait to see how messy that will be)

2\. "A Treaty amendment" requires consent by other treaty members, so not going to happen

3\. "European Council decision" also requires consent by a significant portion of European countries, so also not going to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I also feel like we're in a bubble. There's so much capital around that even fairly weak startups are getting amply funded, and we have bubbles within bubbles (everything cryptocurrency) as investors race to get any sort of return.

But I don't trust myself to time the market at all, so most of my liquidity is in investments right now. My employment though is different. While I'd love to work at a small startup... the risk involved (not to mention the pay cut) is definitely a factor.

Speaking of, the hiring market is crazy right now. Good time to scout out a new job, if you want one.

<comment><USER19> The dot com bubble was different. So many startups were just insane. Working on stuff that had no chance of success. It was all buzzwords and bullshit. Nobody knew what the internet really was going to enable, so they were funding all kinds of ludicrous things that were difficult to comprehend.

<comment><USER47> You mean, like blockchain?

<comment><USER19> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> S&P PE ratio isn't terribly high [1] let alone if you pull FAANG out of it [2]. There is nothing wrong though with taking some time to reduce your business/personal debt load even in good times.

[1] [http://www.multpl.com/](http://www.multpl.com/)

[2] [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4159229-de-faang-lower-s- an...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4159229-de-faang-lower-s- and-p-500-p-e-ratio)

</comment><comment><USER49> Unlike some here, I agree with the basic premises of the article: it 'feels' like we are near the top, and that while it is always important to reduce debt, it is even more important when a bubble might burst soon.

However, I would never write an article like this because while I am happy making predictions for myself and taking personal actions, I would never feel comfortable giving advice to the general public because I believe that markets and the economy are inherently chaotic.

</comment><comment><USER50> The Kennady family made a nice fortune selling at the top before the 29 crash and buying somewhere at the bottom. If you can time something like that more power to you.

</comment><comment><USER39> The only thing that I see more and more, is that it has been now 10 years since the 2008 crisis and the longer it has been, the longer people start to realize that something is going to happen eventually (Thanks captain obvious).

Beside that, there is no way to exactly know when or why it is going to happen. If you knew, it means that you got information that the market doesn't have (since it didn't adjust to it).

<comment><USER51> This is theory, empirically the data says otherwise. in 2007 there was a huge amount of evidence in plain sight that the housing market was a bubble, but the market didn't adjust to a rational level.

See "The Big Short". That greatly understates the level of willful blindness, since it deals mainly with CDOs, not so much the house prices themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Always good advice, but this article has no substance whatsoever. It's reads like any other analyst trying to time the market.

</comment><comment><USER53> > The businesses I build are profitable, focus on cash flow, and sell > commoditized services.

Wish I could figure out a good niche like that...

<comment><USER54> [http://www.startupbook.net/](http://www.startupbook.net/)

You can thank me later.

<comment><USER55> First business idea: sell this author a mobile optimized site.

<comment><USER56> Yes, this is a "cobbler's kids have no shoes" moment. (Author here.) I have been busy building other sites. I promise I will make the time investment on my blog soon. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It's a good thing to save and be frugal... Essentially always be a cockroach.

But calling market tops is a fools game. You're wrong until you're right and then you look like a genius. But article doesn't explain why the market is going to tank other than "I feel like it's going to happen".

</comment><comment><USER58> It's possible we're at the top of a market cycle...but I also see a lot of technological progress that has yet to go mainstream but probably will soon. I think the 2020's will be an absolute booming decade for the world economy, U.S. included. Electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, process automation, robotics, IOT, blockchain, continual cloud software growth, AR/VR applications, space industry, medical tech, solar energy...I just see a huge range of industries that have a long way to grow and I have a hard time being pessimistic. Sure, a recession is possible, but I doubt we'll see the same downturn we saw in 2008. A lot of that boom was driven by real estate flipping, which didn't contribute to sustainable economic growth. Technological progress, on the other hand, is both disruptive and produces permanent gains in quality of life.

</comment><comment><USER59> Ditto</comment>


Ask HN: Should colleges offer startup courses? - <AUTHOR>

As the title says, should they? The way I view it, it would be a hybrid of a business type course with some sort of computer science integration mixed in.<p>What are your thoughts?
What other courses should colleges teach to be applied to those wanting to begin a startup? <comment><USER2> Some of them do. I took one at Georgia Tech. I can't remember the course name, but it's listed as a CS class. It's taught by Merrick Furst.

The coursework involves basically going through the business model canvas, how to rapidly prototype, how to collect good feedback and other startup related topics. Somewhat more oriented towards "startups" versus "entrepreneurship", because that's Merrick's focus (see Flashpoint@Georgia Tech)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great! How long have they offered a course like this?

<comment><USER2> At least 2010. I think before that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I took a startup course at our University once. The professor, an academic startup expert, shuffled up to the blackboard, slouched, pulled his shoulders together, looked at his toes and said with a whiny voice: "Our research says, to fund a startup, you have to have a lot of passion"

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure it's already happening, here's an example: [https://www.coursera.org/course/startup](https://www.coursera.org/course/startup)

<comment><USER5> Attempts at startup courses are being made at schools across the country. Like example above.

I think the more interesting question is are they worthwhile? In other words, can you actually learn startup skills in a classroom? Or do you need to be running a startup to get them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly what I was wondering. "What's better for this field of study? A classroom environment, or getting your hands dirty and diving into it yourself?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> \- Yes. They should.</comment>


What's Keeping Deep Learning in Academia from Reaching Its Full Potential? - <AUTHOR> https://www.datanami.com/2017/11/20/whats-keeping-deep-learning-academia-reaching-full-potential/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the author and co-founder of SigOpt (YC W15). Happy to answer any questions about the post or Bayesian optimization.

Also, SigOpt is completely free for any academic or non-profit research [1].

[1]: [https://sigopt.com/edu](https://sigopt.com/edu)</comment>


Show HN: Newsbump – a news platform with annotated and versioned reports - <AUTHOR> Hi HN! I have been toying with this idea for about a year and half and have built a prototype. Long story short: - A platform to request news updates about anything that traditional media has long forgotten.
- A platform where anybody can post news updates
- A news report format that can be annotated by the editor instead of ML programs extracting pieces of information e.g. facts and opinions
- Explicit association between claimed facts and supporting evidence.
- Versioned news reports
- A place to discuss / chat with the reporter.
Website: https://newsbump.in/
What do you think? <comment><USER2> >A platform where anybody can post news updates

This is your first hurdle. Why would anyone do this on your site? If you want to tackle requesting news updates, your best be to work with news publishers (add widgets into their news articles).

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea was to have a place for events/topics that aren't covered by the traditional news publishers. I understand it would be a hard sell.</comment></comment>


Apple Bans Another Developer, 1000+ Apps Pulled - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/07/apple-bans-another-developer-1000-apps-pulled/

<comment><USER2> This is very good news. Less spammy shitty apps makes more room for real developers, and less frustration for users.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm kind of suprised they don't have some sort of analytic system in place to detect this sort of thing automatically.

I hope they are working on one, as manually discovering this thing with the amount of apps/developers would be nigh impossible. The only trouble would be with false positives, so then you'd need an additional manual review system on top of that (of which one would think they're already short on reviewers anyway).

</comment><comment><USER4> This article title is ambiguous enough that it makes what happened sound like it was a bad thing...

</comment><comment><USER5> dupe of: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=982042>

</comment><comment><USER6> But how does one developer get 1011 apps through into the app store in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow - easy way to get your competitors kicked out of the AppStore!</comment>


Show HN: Tuxtorial - Create and share screenshot-based tutorials for Linux. - <AUTHOR>

I've been working on this full time for three months. I wanted to make an announcement to gauge interest before I make a beta release.
http://tuxtorial.com
Please provide feedback on the content, my writing skills not great and I want to know if the text is readable. I hope to make it ready for everyone to play with in a week or so. <comment><USER2> When I was beginning, this would of been great. I think would be nice to differentiate by distros. Also if they can be linkable and indexable so for example when answering a question on ubuntu forums, being able to link to specific videos would be nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the planned features for the next release. Users can say whether a tutorial works for them or not, and based on their User-Agent, the system will be able to guess whether it should work for a new user or not.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://tuxtorial.com></comment>


Ask HN: How do I land my first small-business client? - <AUTHOR> A few months ago I decided to begin moonlighting as a consultant. I put up a website (https://www.parkandeaton.com), started a twitter/facebook account, started a high-level technical blog, started a Meetup, started attending Meetups, and handing out my business cards to business owners who will take them.
I am interested in two things typically: security and usability auditing for smaller companies who don't have the staff or knowledge to do this themselves. I am also interested in optimizing the run-way for small companies who have no technical run-way (using docker, vagrant, etc.)
So, to appeal to small companies, I keep a high-level blog and post links to the stuff on twitter and facebook. This generates little to no attention.
In my experience, there are tons of companies who /need/ security/usability auditing but I don't know how to reach them. There are also tons of small companies who could use run-way optimization but I don't know how to reach them. Letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. So I can't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner.
If you've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done? How can I get my blog (which is geared toward very high-level technical tips) more traction among a crowd who isn't necessarily looking for technical information? And ultimately, how do I get my first clients (who are not looking for a new Wordpress site)? <comment><USER3> 1\. What you are interested in is only tangentially relevant at best. Consultants are hired based on their clients' interests.

2\. You have discovered the difference between pretend work and real work. SEO, blogging, branding, tweeting, etc. are pretend work. Real work is identifying leads, qualifying prospects, and closing deals...then doing the work and actually getting paid. Pretend work is easier because you can control it and nobody slams the door in your face when you tweet or goes with someone else because they were $5 cheaper or closes down with your invoices unpaid.

For all the things you've mentioned, I don't see a value proposition. How does Docker make someone money? More importantly how does Docker make any specific business money? It's a long road to develop a consultancy with a backlog.

Good luck.

<comment><USER4> Disagree: Blogging, branding, including creation of whitepapers, creates credibility and shows what's behind a value proposition. Knock on a door without a brochure, and the customer has no idea of the service.

Agree: Need to knock the door in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would suggest picking _one_ field - either security or usability. While you may actually be an expert in both, it will be easier to position yourself as an expert in one. This will make your marketing more straightforward.

Then, you'll have to figure out how to educate your potential customers. If they don't know they have a problem, you'll have to teach them. Where do they hang out (online and in person)? Can you teach them why they would need your services and how _you_ can help? Perhaps with a presentation or a whitepaper?

</comment><comment><USER6> How would you sell Park & Eaton's services to yourself? I sometimes get most creative when thinking about myself as the customer, particularly because I personally do not like buying things.

It takes time to generate attention on social media without controversy or craziness. Hang in there.

You have a great logo (hooray for spaceships!). Your website is also clean (not too overwhelming) and easy to navigate. I would recommend first selecting a few small businesses that you would like to have as clients. Can they understand your website - your message? I ask this because there are some areas where the wording can be rephrased. Especially with small businesses, you won't just be selling to technical people, but you will be selling to busy people.

Examples are powerful. These don't needed to be displayed publicly, but have something ready (and interesting!) to show potential clients what you can do. I don't see a problem with your two interests: security and usability auditing. Some people may advise you to focus on one or the other, but this is IMHO.

If you are willing to write blog articles, would you consider writing and submitting articles to other sites, like the huffingtonpost.com or medium.com? You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you online; it doesn't take much for a website to get lost.

Ultimately, to get your first clients, I'd recommend treating each one with a lot of personal attention, and showing them that you truly care about them and their businesses. When you initiate contact with them (try to get a meeting, invite them to lunch or coffee, offer a contest, etc.), present your services as accessible, valuable, and profitable - a direct way to help their bottom line (with metrics to back you up). Even without client history, you can do this by doing old-school research and by being as prepared as possible for misinterpretations and specific concerns. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> Pick up the phone and start calling people. Sell them your service. You get a lot of rejections to start with, but that's how you learn what to say to get further. Eventually you'll start to get positives.

There is literally no other way to build a consultancy business.

<comment><USER8> I'd also suggest picking one (security auditing or usability auditing or runway analysis). It's hard (trust me, I know, I haven't been super focused in my consulting) but a clearer message if you stick with one area rather than three.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's all about fixing their problems and/or filling a need or desire. In other words, start with the "why": why does a company need your services? What problems do they have and how would you solve them?

When I go to your web page, it looks nice, but put yourself in my shoes, I'm a small company. Why would I care about "sustainable software development"? I'm a small biz, and when I hear "software development", I think of a barrel of cash being thrown out the window.

Consulting is really no different from product development: you have to be finding the pain, talking to people about their pain, and then you can mention how you might be able to solve that pain. As an example: "Has your company's systems been hacked? If you think the answer is no, think again. 83% [made up] of all companies have been hacked and don't even know it. We can do a basic security audit for you for [free/fixed-price] and if we can help you fix it, there's no charge."

Good luck and if you'd like to chat about Docker, let me know -- I'm working on a Docker sideline, but I try to focus on the pains it solves, e.g., the "it works on my machine" problem rather than, "hey, Docker here!" ;).

</comment><comment><USER10> _security and usability auditing_

Do you know who your prospective customers are? Can you profile them to a very narrow group? Small companies as a group is a big segment. You need to narrow your prospective customer base to a very small group and then reach out to them.

 _Letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. So I can 't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner._

Smaller the business more focused they are on either increasing the revenue or decreasing the cost. If you can't show how your service immediately impacts revenue or cost, you are not going to get much traction with them.

 _If you 've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done?_

Tough proposition if you have to educate the market that they need something, you are going to need lot of money and resources for educating the market. You need to offer something that businesses already know they need. You may need to look at service providers who already providing complementary services to small businesses and target and consider them as customers.

Personally, I can't figure out what are you offering and why should I buy.

</comment><comment><USER11> I used to be where you were - I wanted to be an independent consultant, I wanted to find clients and I wanted to grow my business. Now I operate as a high-end consultant for application security. I can tell you what I did, and hopefully it will help you as well.

I offer web and mobile penetration tests, source code analysis and best practices workshops for companies between the seed and Series A stage (I have also worked with recognizable enterprises you'd know of). Through September I'm fully booked at 100% capacity, mostly with Y Combinator companies. I charge a static rate of $10,000/week, though I discount this for certain circumstances (good referral, long term contract, etc).

So, that's me. How did I get to this place? How can _you_ get to this place?

1\. I network a lot. I don't go to meetups. I don't have a blog. I don't hand out business cards. I network with people in 1x1 ways that show my value. My best referrals have come from people who I helped pro bono for something seemingly insignificant who turned out to be _very well connected._ I don't network in a way characteristic of a salesman, I do so in a way that starts by genuinely listening to someone talk about a problem. If I can help, I frame myself as a person who can solve a business problem that happens to be related to security, not as a fly-by-night freelancer. I talk to people because I genuinely like talking to people - I will often just welcome people to email me to chat - not for a consultation, literally just to chat. It opens doors. The best way to start this is to literally reach out to people who are in influential groups - _not influential people themselves_ \- and help them in an honest manner. They will naturally refer you to people who have both problems and excess money, who are your qualified leads.

2\. I have a strong value proposition. My work involves a lot of technical proficiency - I'm not just using a vulnerability scanner - and I deliver very solid results every time. I don't give canned reports and I can communicate effectively with both developers and managers. I am consistently well referred to others and over time this has led me to a place where I have excellent clients more often than not and I have to say no more than I can say yes.

3\. I have read probably every comment by patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) and tptacek (Thomas Ptacek) on consulting. I have probably read all of them several times, in fact. They are both very good people (talk to them sometime) and they both have excellent advice. Those comments give you literally everything you need to know to run a consultancy on your own. They will give you all the non-technical savvy you need to run a technical business.

4\. I am confident in my rates and don't back down from them. I will change on scope, but not my rates. I charge weekly and if I am not a good financial fit for someone I make a good faith effort to redirect them somewhere else.

5\. I'm honest. I used to work at a security firm, one of the largest in fact. A lot of firms do things I don't agree with, like writing "has autocomplete enabled" on a security report. This doesn't mean that they are bad people, but it is tonedeaf to what your client really wants most of the time. I don't exaggerate findings and I do present my work in a very honest light. I also strive to be honest in business dealings as well. There is a lot of snake oil in this industry and I don't rip off my clients - I will not work with someone if something feels "off" or I don't feel I'm legitimately contributing value.

You can do it. It took me a long time, but you can do it. I would advise you start out by subcontracting another firm that needs work. Dirty secret - <USER2> security firms will subcontract to you, and you can build a client base that way.

Let me know if I can help you in any way, my email is in my profile. I agree with what others have said here that you should focus on either security or usability. Do one thing, and one thing well (or at least one domain well). I also don't think you should be putting so much effort into marketing. A blog is helpful for long term leads, but it won't help you in < 6 months usually. Ads are impersonal and probably won't get you what you're looking for either. Find influential groups and mingle with them in an honest way.

Also, if you're going to work in security, I advise you to work at a security firm before striking out on your own. If nothing else, it will show you the entire process the "real players" use.

I think you need to figure yourself out a bit more, because you're not achieving what you want to yet. Sit down, and write answers to the following:

1\. Who are you? What is your value proposition? Why should I hire you?

2\. Look at your answer above. If you're dispassionate about it, does it _really_ solve a business need? Ask a few uninvested friends in the field.

3\. Do you have a network? If not, why do you have a blog or Twitter? That's not how you build a network. That's how you _maintain_ a network and _grow_ a network. It isn't a seed, it's water.

4\. Who can you immediately identify who needs your services? How can you put yourself in front of them in a way that is more organic than forced?

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER12> So as someone who has a consultancy where we have focused quite a bit on the SMB market I can speak with experience when I say that it is a tougher market at times. Our enterprise clients are harder to get usually but much easier to sell to in a lot of ways. You are doing a lot of the right first steps IMO, many of which I personally did too when I started out. Some suggestions after reading your site quickly and reading your questions.

1\. Your site doesn't communicate to the small business owner. You need to tell/teach them what you can do for them, not use "jargon" or terms they can care less about. In the end they are wanting to know what problems you can solve or how you can help them make more money. So for example, instead of just saying security and usability on the site. Frame it in the terms of "did you know", and mention some specific statistics on SMB's where you have relevant knowledge which you can use to improve upon their issues for them. This is helping them understand what you offer versus just stating terms they may not be 100% familiar with.

2\. In general SMB's don't care about you making their team slightly more efficient, they care how you can save them $10k/yr, or better yet, how you can make them an extra $10k or whatever the magic number is. Many times it is about how you market yourself and what you say more then what you are offering that helps them buy.

3\. SMB's get defensive typically when you approach them too fast or too hard about what they are doing wrong. They all know they are doing things that aren't necessarily correct but they have "made it this far". So generally it is not about telling them they are wrong and need to change, its about framing the conversation to say, hey did you know that you have done amazing so far and I am impressed, but it got me thinking that if you did XYZ, you could actually make more money every month or save 1 FTE's time per year making you more net income etc. That is how you spin a conversation and avoid the defensive response. Of course you have to find your own valid position but that is how I do it. But this opens the door for them to say, oh yea? Tell me more. Even if they say your full of shit tell me more, it is opening the conversation and they aren't defensive.

What I think you are finding is that while you have the skills to fix issues, you don't yet know how to present and discuss those skills with people to convince them to hire you. You probably have had some luck but I would bet it was with people that were either introduced to you by someone they trust or you had a prior/current relationship with somehow. That isn't a knock, it is how we all start. The great news is at least IMO everyone can learn the sales/marketing skills, they aren't secret or all that hard, its just how you frame conversations with prospects. And you have to expect it will take building up a little bit of a relationship with them.

Feel free to reach out to me via email, I am pretty happy to share my experiences good and bad. And good luck, it is fun figuring it all out, at least I think it is.

</comment><comment><USER13> Have you tried freelance networks like TopTal?</comment>


Ask HN: Privacy Respecting DNA Sequencing? - <AUTHOR> I want to sequence my DNA and get the results. But i do not want a company to keep a copy of it. Even if it assures me it will not share it, sell it or it will keep the data "anonymized". I want them to sequence it, give it and delete it. After all I'm paying for it. Extra points if i can be sure of it, like doing it at home, which I suspect we are still far away from that. <comment><USER2> All of the major companies essentially use Illumina hardware, you can find private labs that will extract your raw data, but what do you plan to do with it?

Without the data sets of Ancestry, 23andme, etc. the raw data isn't very useful for most consumers.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can search for specific genes on it i don't care about ancestry.

<comment><USER2> If you're looking for medical testing you're better off getting specific tests for what you're looking for.

As you have no guarantees that you won't get errors or no-reads on the SNP you care about and you won't get the QA process the consumer companies have.

If you've got specific medical concerns would strongly recommend you speak to a professional medical genealogist, as it's super easy to misinterpret data unless you've got a background in this space.</comment></comment></comment>


The Web isn't Brought to You By the Letter "T" - <AUTHOR> http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/06/the_web_is_brou.html

<comment><USER2> The %ages for English language are all over the place in terms of errors, depending on which source is taken and whether the same words are counted on multiple occurrences.  (see comments [http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/06/the_web_is_brou.ht...](http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/06/the_web_is_brou.html#IDComment82583681))

It's a cute post, but I'm not drawing many conclusions from it.

</comment><comment><USER3> are these frequencies excluding common stopwords? site doesn't say...</comment>


Analyzing the app stores in search of the best apps - <AUTHOR> http://arc.applause.com/2015/12/16/applause-analytics-state-of-the-app-store-and-google-play-2015/ <comment><AUTHOR> Some really interesting data in here. All the review counts for entire categories in iOS and Android. Average star ratings for both App Store and Google Play. Total publishers for both stores and so on.</comment>


The Official Name.com Blog » Getting on our SOPA Box (and saving you money) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.name.com/2011/12/getting-on-our-sopa-box-and-saving-you-money/

<comment><USER2> So name.com are jumping on the SOPA bandwagon too, but instead of clearly voicing their protest against SOPA they simply say "piracy is bad, freedom is good" (some form of non-apology[0], apparently) and hope everyone is so outraged by GoDaddy that they give their money to name.com instead?

I am sorry, but that's just spam/advertisement and not worth a HN submission.

0: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry - did not mean to spam. I actually transferred 20+ domains to them from godaddy today and wanted to give this group a heads up about that deal in anyone was doing the same. No offense intended.</comment>