Intern at a YC Company - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/intern-at-a-yc-company-2019/ <comment><USER3> I really like this line: _Finding summer housing in the Bay Area is usually a big chore, so we're excited to be rolling out a program (more details soon) with some great YC companies to make it easy_

That will open up the internships to a larger group of students.

</comment><comment><USER4> There should honestly be a Common App for internships: one application, a standardized coding challenge, and then interviews. TripleByte seems to be trying to do something similar for full-time, but they don't cover internships.

<comment><USER5> I think the Common App is awful. Many of my friends out of high school applied to a few colleges. I applied to 17. Why? The cost of a college app is ~$75. The Common App turns careful consideration of where you want to study into a monetary game. I was lucky to afford it. Most people can't.

As for TypeByte, I think it's okay. My girlfriend went through it, passed with flying colors and got many interviews. The problem is jobs like colleges differ vasty.

Perhaps a better solution for the problem is a meaningful certification. Then you can simply focus on the specifics of the role and company to see if it's a good fit. Determining qualification is a solved problem in many other fields.

<comment><USER6> So you are saying the current system is better, because rich students have better chances as they can afford more applications?

The current college system in the US is entirely flawed. College education should be free and slots given based on merit and not money. What you pointed out is that this bad system already starts at the cost for an application.

University education in Germany is basically free (~300€ per year) and application costs are printing 2-3 pages and sending them in or bringing them personally. And that's only for the final step, everything else is already online.

<comment><USER7> Some slight corrections/comments (source, German who went through our education system)

1\. Depending on the university, you might not even have to print anything out, I applied to TUM purely digital IIRC 2\. While I was studying they abolished the study fees. What you pay is student unions dues, which depending on which state include a public transportation ticket, access to additional medical consultations and career services and other stuff 3\. We can also apply for federal study aid, depending on need. I worked and had parents who could support me, so I "only" got around 6000€ for all of my studies (plus an additional 3000 for studying abroad in Switzerland for a while) of which I'll have to repay 50% interest free, less if I can pay it off in a lump sum. 4\. This is a very social-democratic German perspective, but I'd argue education is a right and should be given to everyone, limited only by the available resources. Conditional on limited resources split it between prioritising need (e.g., increasing social mobility) and prioritising ROI (in a rough sense, merit)

As an aside, I will be happily corrected if this is wrong, but I remember reading that in 2012 Germany graduated almost as many engineers (3 years bachelor plus master graduates, most of whom did a bachelor before) as the US (4 year bachelor with most people not going for the master of not as part of a PhD, if I understand correctly?). While I'm sure you can't exactly equate these numbers, with population numbers of 82e6 Vs 300e6 this seemed to me like the German system was doing something right - especially given German engineers _seem_ (?) to be well qualified in the international comparison

<comment><USER6> > 1\. Depending on the university, you might not even have to print anything > out, I applied to TUM purely digital IIRC

I'm also a TUM graduate. At least a few years ago, you had to send in or hand in your signed final application papers (not even all documents) to the "Immatrukulationsamt". But so much of the process is purely online, that you might have forgotten about it.

<comment><USER7> Ah, true, at the very end you print out a form, sign and then mail it or hand it over. Thanks for jogging my memory

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> February is a bit late for summer internships in my experience–most students have probably already accepted one already for fear of not having one over the summer.

<comment><USER9> +1. It's a little insane how early the internship "season" is these days (I know interns who signed offers in Aug/Sept 2018 for summer 2019 internships).

Maybe YC & YC companies can bring some order to this internship arms race by establishing clear application/decision timelines for YC companies? My sense is February is too late, but September-October applications for November decisions might work well.

<comment><USER4> Can we just push deadlines back to December? That's around the same time as most college apps are due, and they're basically the same process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > They're all well-funded, growing rapidly, and have competitive salaries for > interns.

Excellent. Unpaid internships should be illegal.

<comment><USER11> No they shouldn't. If someone wants to work for free they should be able to.

And forcing paid internships will reduce the number of internships available.

<comment><USER12> I agree with this, despite the resistance it seems to be getting.

There should be a very high bar for making illegal any activity between two consenting parties where there's no obvious and severe externalities. I don't see how this harms anyone outside of the intern/company, both of which should be free to make their own decisions.

<comment><USER13> How do you feel about the minimum wage? Do you think workers who flip burgers or stock shelves have the bargaining power to reach a fair wage? In such a negotiation who will blink first, the individual, replaceable worker or the multi billion dollar corporation?

<comment><USER14> It's not always about flipping burgers or waiting tables and even those "basic" jobs needs training. Some employers don't want to deal with untrained staff, so increasing the minimum wage or making internship illegal is going to do more harm than good and the people you want to protect will have a harder time getting trained on the job

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This looks like a great opportunity! I am a graduating high school senior and will be enrolling in an undergraduate Computer Science or Computer Engineering program in the fall. Is it still possible to apply through this application?

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep! I did an internship at a startup after my senior year of high school - <USER2> was awesome.

<comment><USER15> Thank you so much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can I apply from outside the USA?

<comment><USER17> Yes, few countries are listed in the blog

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My younger brother is in his second year of comp sci. I was wondering if has enough skills to be considered. If not, what do you guys recommend for him to work on?

This is a copy of his CV: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1shLwzU4egTm- DSt9eBRfhun87_r...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1shLwzU4egTm- DSt9eBRfhun87_rVwGrF/view)

<comment><USER19> He could easily get an internship at Facebook (non-YC) or maybe Airbnb (YC). He definitely has enough skills to get a good internship.

<comment><USER20> It's hard to get the attention of the recruiters at those companies in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why do I have to be a student to qualify?

<comment><AUTHOR> What's your current situation? While exceptions exist, internships are usually designed for full-time students who are supposed to go back to school in the fall. If you don't have a hard commitment like that, companies would typically prefer to just hire you full-time.

<comment><USER21> I've been working full time as a mobile developer for 2 years after dropping out of college nearly immediately and attending a bootcamp the subsequent summer.

<comment><USER22> Why not apply for full time positions at these companies?

<comment><USER21> I don't qualify.

Edit: I should elaborate. There are companies out there offering internships that I would die for. I don't mean FAANG stuff or Big 5 or whatever. I'm talking small shops like Teenage Engineering or medium sized business like Ableton or Native Instruments. I have been put in an awkward position where I have experience working full time as a developer, but I'm not necessarily learning anything or developing my skills. It sucks not being able to qualify for a certain subset of entry-level opportunities because I'm not apart of the college/university institutions. I will be keeping my head up as the position I am in may just be what forces me to be extraordinary at what I do.

<comment><USER23> I don't want to be too blunt, but I think the barrier you are seeing is 25% real and 75% in your head.

Some of the best coders and ops people I've ever worked with either never went or never graduated from college.

If you've been working 2 years as a full-time mobile dev, you're qualified for a full-time role. We pay our interns industry salaries, just for 3 months instead of 12. We do take a little bit of extra care to give them a good intro to the company and make sure we take them to a factory in their first (and only) 3 months and have a few intern events over the summer, but otherwise, it's 80-90% like having a software developer job. A few places will have some HR/recruiting drone 86 your resume because of no college. Many will not and most hiring managers who are/were programmers won't care.

tl;dr: Apply anyway (for full-time).

<comment><USER24> Although OP's situation is different in that they have 2 years of experience, I can definitely say that companies won't just hire someone full-time with zero experience anymore (even into "new grad" or junior positions). College internships weren't always a thing; a career switcher might not have any tech experience to put on a resume, and a lot of companies and recruiters don't even look at personal projects. It's a very tough row to hoe starting from zero and getting a job as a developer.

<comment><USER23> Agree that it's no longer like it was back in 1998-early 2000 (where all you needed was a pulse it seemed), but I believe that competence and capability will generally overcome obstacles.

Would it be easier if you graduated 6-3 from MIT? Sure! Would it be easier if you already had 2 years at Netflix? Sure! You have to play the cards you're holding at the moment, though.

Side note: I've also heard the complaint recently that companies and recruiters are being too selective _by asking_ about open source or personal projects, so there are definitely some out there. We don't have a set formula; I'm happy to talk about you, your goals, your skills and abilities, and anything else that comes up. If you've got a great personal project, let's talk about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I interned at a YC company as my first internship (LeadGenius, YCS11) before they had this organized a program. I had no idea what YC was before I applied, and learned about YC and HN later. The YC dinner was great, ended up making some connections and eventually applied to YC Fellowship two years later and went through myself. The YC network has been great for me, and it all started with an internship within a portfolio company.

I'm at another YC company, Starsky Robotics now, and we're open for interns! Come join and build self-driving trucks.

<comment><USER26> (Throwaway for what I think will be obvious reasons). I also had my first real internship at a YC company in the Summer of 2012 (think they were either a YCW11 or YCS10 company - they are long since dead). Was the summer after my junior year - had been doing some hackathons and side projects and was really into the startup scene in general. I still remember that my interview consisted mostly of explaining what NodeJS was (the phrase "event loop" was used quite liberally) and then after going back and forth with another company decided to fly out to Mountain View for the summer. Was pretty excited, as I didn't have too many other competing offers and seemed like an interesting, product focused company.

And I must say - what an absolute disaster of a summer. Lived in a large concrete structure where the CEO, my boss (amazing person who I credit with making the summer bearable) and 9 other interns lived. We slept in a room with 5 sets of bunk beds that led to a kitchen on one side and a back room (kind of a garage like space) behind it. Days regularly stretched from 10am to 2am. My pay was room + board and then $400 a week on top of that, which I found out was more than the other interns were making. Too much crazy stuff happened to go into exact detail but a representative listing of events(some of it good, some of it bad):

1\. Somehow many of the interns + full time staff (across eng + sales) were either D1 Wrestlers or semi-professional martial artists. I actually credit them with getting me into strength training for the first time. In the back, garage-like room, however, was a wrestling mat. Many, many drunken wrestling matches were had in that room, which while no one was forced to participate in, everyone tended to get in on. I was definitely not on the more athletic side of the group and was put into many, many armbars.

2\. One of the interns was very new to the software industry and a bit older. Moved to Mountain View from I think it was Kentucky. Super nice and jovial guy and a super hard worker (we played a lot of basketball that summer and did some condition training. He was not the most in shape person, but one time did sprints until he threw up), but also had a lot of emotional issues. More than once he got incredibly drunk and had to be talked down from hurting himself and others by the other interns plus staff.

3\. My 21st birthday coincided with the very start of the internship. To celebrate, I chugged an entire (smaller) bottle of whiskey, and we proceeded to run around our neighborhood incredibly drunk, including a stop to Safeway carrying around a mannequin one of the founders owned. At one point snuck into someone's backyard and chilled in their pool for a while. It was honestly a very memorable time.

4\. One of the founders was going through a divorce at the time and sometimes did not handle it super well. One night he showed up at the work/live space (he had his own apartment nearby) drunk as hell and begged for one of us to go to SF to go clubbing with him. I, being a very dumb intern, acquiesced as he was pretty much refusing to leave unless somebody went with him. How did we get to SF you ask? By driving in his BMW of course! We hit easily over 100 on the 101, him blind drunk, but in the end made it out alive. Sadly, the club he had wanted to go to had closed at that point so we just ate at a Denny's instead and went home.

5\. And the last thing I'll end with is the CEO. What an absolute scumbag. He was a physically very large human and he knew it. He would throw his weight around to intimidate those around him - thankfully all the other full time employees (who were awesome) were no slouches themselves and so were able to at least somewhat contain him. At one point, halfway through the summer, he ordered all the interns to give a status update on their projects. We all thought it was a fun way to show off what we had been working on and prepared accordingly. After the talks, he yelled at us that we weren't pushing hard enough and that if this is how seriously we took our jobs, some of us would be fired. For a project that of course we had no way to make go faster or get more direction on (and for a lot of us was our first internship!). I forget why this next part happened, but he tried to organize a MANDATORY company camping trip the week before it was supposed to happen for us all to bond. The entire company revolted, and basically told him to go to hell. He was a lot more calm for the rest of the summer, and then (from what I remember) was basically forced out later that fall for utterly failing to do his job.

So many other things happened (we had the world's weirdest office manager who at one point made out with an intern against his will and then felt very hurt that he wasn't into her, despite the fact she was at least 20 years his senior) that I have seriously considered trying to get everyone back together to do an oral history as something, as I'm sure it was a time that no one will ever forget. After that I basically came back to school and did not code on the side for 3 months as I was so burned out, but eventually got an awesome job afterwards and things have been pretty good since!

EDIT: Reposted for better formatting

<comment><USER27> > ...the CEO, my boss (amazing person who I credit with making the summer > bearable)...

> the last thing I'll end with is the CEO. What an absolute scumbag

My head is having a hard time reconciling these 2 statements.

<comment><USER26> Ahh sorry for the confusing grammar. I was trying to imply in the first sentence that my boss was an awesome person, but only him, not the CEO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This reminds me a lot of HackNY ([https://apply.hackny.org/](https://apply.hackny.org/)) - it's a non-profit in NYC that handles housing, activities, and placement for NYC startup interns

</comment><comment><USER29> The application process is really smooth! Kudos to whoever built it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! That was all [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mattlong](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mattlong)

<comment><USER20> I agree it was very nice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is this purely for software development/engineering or does applied research still qualify?</comment>


Ask HN: Experience with GSA Schedules  - <AUTHOR>

The other day we got a call by a firm trying to sell us on applying to become a vendor on a GSA schedule.  The company itself was a scam, however we've always tossed around the idea about trying to get into that market.  We're a small 5 person web application consulting company.<p>Has anyone had experience with this process?  Or know about people having success/failures with it?  Just trying to decide if the long application process is worth our time and effort or if we should focus elsewhere. <comment><USER2> Yes -- it's a long process, and there are other contract vehicles that agencies do procurement under... so getting your GSA (even with the help of a company that does this for you): a) takes a long time, b) isn't a guarantee that you'll actually be able to be awarded for many contracts, and c) even for contracts that are under GSA, just having your GSA is about step 2 of 100

Now, if you have some particular in-house skillset that distinguishes you, turn up some opportunities and take them to one of the SIs to team on. Bring value and the opportunities to them, and you can often get into a teaming relationship with long-term benefits. Alternately, team up with an 8(a) or service disabled veteran-owned company. There are many program set-asides for those sorts of companies, so the barrier to entry in them winning government work is greatly reduced. Same basic idea -- if you can bring them some skillset they lack and help them win deals, you're probably in a better position than running from agency to agency waving your GSA schedule.

I'm sorry the company that recommended their services to you was a scam. There are several out there that offer seminars on the government procurement and capture management process that are very good. I don't want to pimp the company I used or the seminars I went to (in no way affiliated), but the outcome was that as a small company (<20 engineers) we decided that our best current path (as far as selling into the government) is to keep subbing and let our primes (ie. our partners) do the selling and bring us in for the skillset we provide that they don't have.</comment>


Live coverage Mini Seedcamp Event Amsterdam - <AUTHOR> http://startupjuncture.com/2013/04/24/live-coverage-mini-seedcamp-event-amsterdam/

<comment><USER2> [Update 15:30 ^TM] Achieved is the first company to get on stage. Achieved is an online professional development plan for ambitious professionals and the organizations in which they work.

<comment><AUTHOR> [Update 15:37 ^WK] Next up Ingrid Sloots of Beautybookers, Booking.com for beauty salons. They aim to solve the problem of finding & booking of (perfect) beauty salons for women.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> [Update 17:06 ^WK] Closing the pitching part of the program was Zazzy, empowering everyone to design stylish jewelry.</comment>


Hacker news is the forth hit on Google for me... - <AUTHOR>

Searching for Hackernews or hacker news I get this
It changed a few days ago... it was always the first one.
The Hacker News - Security in a Serious way thehackernews.com/ The Hacker News is an IT Security and Hacking News Source, updates related to hacking, technology, malwares, vulnerabilities and cyber threat. Tools Yard - The Hacker News Magazine - The Hacker News - Technology - DMCA
Hacker News - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_News Traduzir esta página Hacker News is a social news website about computer hacking and startup companies, run by Paul Graham's investment fund and startup incubator, ... The Evolution Of Hacker News | TechCrunch
techcrunch.com/.../the-evolution-of-hacker-... de Leena Rao - em 19.340 círculos do Google+ 18/05/2013 – The idea of a VC having its own news aggregator was a bit outlandish in 2007. But Y Combinator was in an unusual position in those days ...
New Links | Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/newest +30 itens – Hacker News · new | comments | ask | jobs | submit · login. <comment><USER2> Hacker News has been blocking Google for several days except for one crawler IP address. I think crawlers are especially hard on HN because they often request older pages that aren't in the cache.

This isn't new; see <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277661> for example. I think HN is blocking most crawlers; Bing returns HN at #7 for a search for [hacker news] for example.</comment>


Ask HN: I struggle to write code from scratch - <AUTHOR> Generally most of my learning has come from my CS degree and reading other people's code.  Yet, when I have to start something completely from scratch I still feel like I make beginner mistakes or write sloppy code.
This hasn't really been an issue at my work, however I'm still at a loss as to how I should learn to start from scratch and "architect" code in a way that makes sense and is complex.  By this, I mean sometimes I'll look at a repo that's just a complex rest API and I'll be thinking "there's no way I'd be able to come up with this elegant structure or nested code in one sitting".
Is this a sign I just learn slowly or should I just resign myself to doing product management and non-coding stuff? <comment><USER2> You shouldn't expect to graduate with a CS degree and immediately architect complex systems in the first few years. Experience is what makes people proficient, and mistakes help make you better. Every time you code something up and have to redo it cause you messed up or didn't understand the problem well enough, you learn more and get better.

I also agree with db48x, the complex elegant solution you saw wasn't designed and done in one sitting. It was likely done over time and with a few prototypes and concepts that then got refined into a more elegant solution. Once you get enough experience, you will go through fewer iterations because you'll recognize patterns and when to apply them. Even then though you might prototype a couple of different ideas to test some theory.

Now if you say you've been coding professionally for 5-7 years and you are struggling still with basic architectures, then maybe there is something else going on.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this happens to everyone. No one instinctively knows how to do this. In addition, you learn by seeing existing designs and critiquing them (positively or negatively... knowing what to avoid is almost more important IMHO).

I would even say that most people working in software can only fill in the blanks, they absolutely cannot start from scratch (which is in truth very hard).

</comment><comment><USER4> It's just a skill; practice it. The author of that complex API probably didn't write it all in one sitting, or even come up with the skeleton all at once. Likely they cribbed from some other project they worked on, perhaps making improvements or mistakes.

<comment><USER5> Also, the author could have gotten feedback from other people (users of the API or other developers) on earlier versions of the API that improved the current version. Being able to write complex code is a useful skill, but so is the ability to collaborate with others on larger projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's mostly been awkward at work when co-workers or my manager make comments like "you've shipped code like this before" that's followed with negative feedback and a implication that I should've "known that wasn't good enough" or "wasted the time of a reviewer" even though the code seemed simple enough for me and passed tests.

I really can't tell if I suck or just work in an incredibly toxic workplace?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is this T-shirt message too selfish? - <AUTHOR> We're a startup team of 3 people and we'll start working in a co-working space. We are currently looking to extend our team and we want a T-shirt that stands out. Is the following message too selfish?<p>"All people are created equal but only the best work at StartupName" <comment><USER3> You do know it's an Animal Farm reference, right? "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

In the story, this was the "commandment" used to justify why the pigs - <USER2> symbolic for the Soviet leaders - could take over Animal Farm.

If you use that quote, it would suggest that StartUp Name, made of "the best", wants to oppress others.

Now, I can think of some jobs where that is true. But if that's the case, you might not want to signal your intentions so directly.

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends on if the ideal candidate is the sort of person who wants to work with people who wear tee shirts that proclaim themselves the best programmers to the point that they will wear such a tee shirt.

To me, worrying over which clever slogan to put on tee shirt is a way of pretending to do the hard work of recruiting which is talking to people and evaluating their ability and deciding it doesn't fit and telling them so and being humane while doing so.

I think, "StartupName: We are hiring" is more to the point and a better conversation starter.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a little gimmicky, but if its a joke or a humourous method of promoting yourselves there isn't anything properly offensive about it. As long as are actually working on a decent project, I'd say go for it, it's funny.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of the big ugly fat guy I saw at the mall who had a shirt that said "I have the DICK so I make the RULES". It left me wishing the tiny asian woman who works at the mma gym would rip his ears off.</comment>


Yahoo Decides to Fire Its Brightest Tech Minds. Facebook Will Gladly Take Them. - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/03/16/yahoo-decides-to-fire-its-brightest-tech-minds-facebook-will-gladly-take-them/#.T3PTbNkU6XA.twitter

<comment><USER2> _"If Facebook wants a team so badly that its very busy CEO who is about to take his company public is spending his time personally courting them, maybe it's worth keeping."_

Or maybe its simply that Yahoo! doesn't know how/isn't organizational able to utilize this resource.

Which then begs the question, why have these research folks stuck around all this time given the fluidity of the job market?

</comment><comment><USER3> Another linkbaity unsourced article by Lacy.

<comment><USER4> PandoDaily was apparently created to give TechCrunch a run for its money in the linkbait department. I've absolutely no idea why any real geek would go there for news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's always sad to see once great companies gow down the drain like this, no matter how well deserved it may be.

My theory why they didn't leave: There are companies that can develop some kind of "gravity" (for lack of a better word) that keeps people stuck even if it would be better to get away. It almost seems that's this is a heritage of the glory days gone by. And if the decline is kind of flat, you can end up needing a major wake-up call to realize where au finally arrived.

<comment><USER6> >It's always sad to see once great companies gow down the drain like this, no matter how well deserved it may be.

Well, a company is a just a collection of people. And since these people are moving on, they're going to go on creating cool stuff. Better to have companies dissolve like this than people with good ideas to stagnate in a dying office.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, you're right. Maybe I'm just a little bit sentimental about a service I prefered a long time over Google...

But like the chinese say: Every crisis is an opportunity (or something like that :-))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hiring machine learning experts? One of my Yahoo! friends (a Ph.D. in ML) is looking for an opportunity. I've sent him a few leads, but I'll point him to this comment if there are any good responses. There's no reason he shouldn't expand his search beyond the obvious choices.

<comment><USER8> Google's always hiring.

<http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/index.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Realy you should not say "fire" when you mean "made redundant" the former if untrue is profesional slander.</comment>


Is tonight's Boston YC News meeting still on?  Who's going? - <AUTHOR> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=74633

<comment><AUTHOR> dfranke and I will both be there...hoping to see a few others.</comment>


Bank of America Giving Access to Random Accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2012/09/warning-bank-of-america-giving-access-to-random-accounts/ <comment><USER2> I ran into something similar while working with a Seattle-based email vendor years ago. They had an online survey application which recognized your user information by a special token, created a new entry in a table for your survey, then proceeded to display your information. In launching a high-volume campaign, people started complaining that they were seeing other people's contact information.

They never admitted it, but I'm 100% sure that the issue was that (in SQL Server) they were doing:

      select @@identity

Rather than the correct call of:

      select scope_identity()

The former retrieves the identity of the latest record entered into the table regardless of what SQL statement produced the record (such as another user connecting to the database from a different connection thread); the latter retrieves the identity of the record entered from the current session.

<comment><USER3> Are you sure about that? I am almost positive that you're wrong, and @@identity is per connection. Otherwise how woul it know which table to return an identity for?

I thought that the difference had to do with what's returned if a trigger does an insert or something like that...

<comment><USER2> You're right. As mey pointed out via the docs, @@identity is for the current session, but may return unexpected results if a trigger fires as part of the statement(s) or if you are using replication. It's almost never what you actually wanted whereas scope_identity() is. Come to think of it, perhaps the vendor I mentioned was using ident_current('tablename') which returns the last identity generated for the specified table name regardless of session and scope; this would explain the resulting behavior of the app.

<comment><USER3> Yep, that'd do it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had something similar happen with Wells Fargo. Logged in and saw someone else's name, Florida purchases (I'm in Montana), along with a different account number, statement history, etc.

Naturally, I recorded this with Quicktime and then called WF. Their response: "It's not a big deal -- neither accounts can withdraw money." After repeatedly explaining how serious this is for identity theft, I was told to wait 10 days. Their solution was to shutdown my online account without notice. If no one can login, then it's safe!

It took over a month to get this resolved, and once I could download my statements, I "cancelled" my account. WF is like Hotel California though -- a year and many phone calls later, my accounts still aren't closed.

<comment><USER5> This is mostly unrelated, but some might find it interesting. I went to a Wells Fargo ATM to make a transaction, but the machine was in a sort of debug mode. The bank was closed. I messed around with it for a minute or two because I was curious. Then I remembered the cameras and decided I ought to get the hell out of there.

Pics related: <http://i.imgur.com/T77ni.jpg> <http://i.imgur.com/WdiZK.jpg>

<comment><USER6> You missed the chance to make a deposit pull!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > It's clear that had I gone through with this payment it would have come out > of WATSON's account and not mine.

No it's not clear. You're just looking at some HTML on the screen, it may have come out of some stale cache and have nothing to do with the session's current permissions. You might try to do the transfer and find that the internal state of your session is so hosed that you can't do anything.

<comment><USER8> Exactly, most likely Watson's stuff came from his ISP's cache.

<comment><USER9> How? SSL...

<comment><USER8> Right, nevermind...

<comment><USER10> Not so fast. You don't know if everything is coming down the pipe using SSL. They might be trying something fancy with AJAX, performing a remote call, the server spits back JSON on a regular connection, screws up the headers, and it gets cached. You really can't tell. It is a possibility.

<comment><USER9> A bank pulling down user information unencrypted is only slightly better than showing it to strangers.

Though you're right, it's a possibility :(

<comment><USER11> I take it for granted that banks to stupid things. Just look at their password policies, for example. Many US banks basically prevent you from setting a strong password. Or my Austrian bank (<http://www.easybank.at/>) which includes Javascript code from typekit.com to use some Adobe fonts. Makes me feel much safer knowing that the security of my online banking interface does not only depend on my bank's site, but also on the security of Adobe's site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This sounds hauntingly familiar to something that happened to me on United's site: <http://blog.tinfoilsecurity.com/132969897>

United, in spite of all their other faults, handled it fairly well at least and responded quickly.

</comment><comment><USER13> A little OT but I just realized a compromised facebook could do more harm than a compromised bank account. With a compromised bank account, at least you are guaranteed your money back. Who's gonna return broken relationships and undo other harm caused by facebook privacy screw ups like this? Facebook better begin taking privacy as serious as banks take security. It will naturally SERIOUSLY slow down the pace at which they can do new releases but at this point, they've given pretty granular privacy control that hundreds of millions of people use with the expectation that it will work.

<comment><USER14> Why do you think you have a guarantee of your money back? In the US FDIC insurance insures against the bank going under. If the bank refuses to believe there was fraud I bet you have very little recourse (i.e. they have a huge interest in claiming you transferred the money). In the US you can dispute credit card charges- but that is due to a separate act of congress.

<comment><USER15> Fraud happens, the bank knows it, and if they have a system flaw they won't just blame the customer. The reputational risk isn't worth it.

Also, it isn't FDIC insurance at issue, read up on Reg E claims. Retail customers have a generous route by which they can dispute electronic charges to their bank accounts.

<comment><USER14> Definitely more informed than I am (upvoted). However, I would emphasize- the consumer remain concerned about their bank's security. You don't want to rely on the coverage and speed of dispute and remediations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems that BofA's Internet proxy blocks access to this site linked.

WELP

<comment><USER17> A bank blocking access to a provider of anonymous VPN services. Makes sense.

<comment><USER16> I just found it amusing because the guys who would have to fix it probably don't have the ability to read about the problem.

But yeah, that sort of site is a no-brainer to be filtered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The sad part is that BoA may want to file a suit, because that's the trend. In these type of cases I haven't seen a bank to take responsibility.

<comment><USER19> A suit against who?

<comment><USER20> good question. BoA is designing their system internally since 1997 at least.

The newest version ate up $12MM and is very cool! One of the things I like is that when you create an internal ticket that something is broken, IT Dept has access to all your computer activity; no more screen shoots, error descriptions, etc, everything is recorded on the fly. They can rewind your PC activity 10 minutes (or whatever) prior and see exactly all the steps you took for the error to occur. Very time saving troubleshooting approach.

Edit: ok I meant they can rewind and play your interaction with the intranet systems per say, not the computer alone. But they are locked down pretty much anyways.

<comment><USER21> That sounds incredible!

<comment><USER22> That sounds like a horrible to place to work in... I'd feel uncomfortable doing anything other then work, and any coder here can tell you that you need to do SOMETHING other then work every now and then or you burn out very quickly in the day.

<comment><USER23> I don't think that they are talking about recording what developer workstations are doing. They are talking about recording customer sessions in a replay-able format, so that they can see how the customer caused an error condition.

<comment><USER20> Well, its a some sort of an Internet Explorer plugin that records IE session, all the clicks, even mouse movement. Within BoA you can use Chrome browsers for your personal browsing, but as you can imagine, most of the websites are cut off. But Google works! :)

<comment><USER24> I wonder what they do when the problem is IE. ;)

<comment><USER25> A lot of stubborn poorly run corporate giants cannot move on from IE 6 or 7 because of massive internal red-tape and costs! ( testing, upgrading windows and admin access to pc's for staff, so on ) To be fair Microsoft have ended support for IE7 and are aware its full of security holes. Microsoft recommend you keep up with the world of technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This could be a session crossover issue. Here's IBM's documentation on it:

"In rare situations, usually due to application errors, session data intended for one client might be seen by another client. This situation is referred to as session data crossover. When the DebugSessionCrossover custom property is set to true, code is enabled to detect and log instances of session data crossover. Checks are performed to verify that only the session associated with the request is accessed or referenced. Messages are logged if any discrepancies are detected. These messages provide a starting point for debugging this problem. This additional checking is only performed when running on the WebSphere-managed dispatch thread, not on any user-created threads."

[http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/wsbroker/redirect?versi...](http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/wsbroker/redirect?version=compass&product=was- express-dist&topic=rtrb_httpsessprobs)

</comment><comment><USER27> I had this happen to me on Google. I opened up Google Reader, and poof, I was staring at someone else's set of feeds, but I could also navigate to gmail.com and access their email. I wasn't able to reproduce it after logging out. <https://twitter.com/anantn/status/81128281197387776>

The most convincing explanation I received was that it was a cookie collision. Very small chance, but still possible...

</comment><comment><USER28> Looks like BofA rolled out a new web site based on the UI changes from last month when I last used it. In addition to the new Random Accounts feature, it broke the ability to make mortgage payments "Error in mort-review-pmt-module- hemi-mpw-skin".

</comment><comment><USER29> random accts of kindness?</comment>


The Lost Tools of Learning: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric (1947) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html <comment><USER2> A counterargument to the idea that we have regressed terribly and now uniquely subject to the vicissitudes of propaganda in a new way, presented not because I 100% believe it but because I think it worth considering: Perhaps we are so vulnerable to audio and visual input not because our generation is so terribly degenerate, but because it is a _new thing_ that there are no social mechanisms to prevent.

If this is true, one would expect vulnerability to propaganda in those forms to be going down over time, all things kept equal. Despite the cynical answer, I think that's actually true. Propaganda from, say, 1950 seems laughably crude. Some of that may be cultural messages that signal that of course propagandizing against the Nazis is silly, but some of that is, I believe, the fact that we are more hardened against that stuff both individually and as a society than we used to be. Of course, messages have coevolved with the media, so it can be hard to see the progress, but I contend that it is at least plausible that we have made progress.

Similarly, it is fashionable to believe that our education level has gone monotonically downhill for decades, but I would contend that it is likely that there are just as many idiots (proportionally) in 1909 as there are in 2009, it is just that the only surviving cultural material from 1909 are virtually by definition from the upper, educated class, whereas in 2009 the media is much more egalitarian. This has the effect of making the past look much more educated, but this can be a selection-bias induced illusion.

I think these two ideas are worth considering. I am actually very harsh on the modern educational system and broadly agree with this essay in most ways, but it is still important to separate the real problems from imagined problems, and to find the real causes and not the bias-feeding, cognitively-convenient ones. There are things that argue against these points, too, but they are worth considering.

<comment><USER3> According to Jacques Ellul (the favorite author of the Unabomber, and one that, ironically, almost led to his arrest) it is education that makes us vulnerable to propaganda.

From the introduction to Ellul's book "Propaganda":

      A related point, central in Ellul's thesis, is that modern propaganda
      cannot work without 'education'; he thus reverses the widespread
      notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda.
      On the contrary, he says, education, or what usually goes by that word
      in the modern world, is the absolute prerequisite for propaganda.
      In fact, education is largely identical with what Ellul call
      'pre-propaganda' ...

      [Ellul designates] intellectuals as virtually the most vulnerable
      of all to modern propaganda, for three reasons: (1) they absorb
      the largest amount of secondhand, unverifiable information;
      (2) they feel a compelling need to have an opinion on every important
      question of our time, and thus easily succumb to opinions offered
      to them by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of information;
      (3) they consider themselves capable of 'judging for themselves'.

Ellul's book on propaganda is well worth reading, as is his classic "The Technological Society".

<comment><USER2> In a way, that sort of relates to my point. We have ignorant people, and people susceptible to propaganda due to education. It would be expected to take yet more time to develop a population of educated people resistant to propaganda.

On the other hand, I find that sources such as the Unabomber tend to define "resistant to propaganda" as "believing what I believe" (similar to the way many people use the word "smart" to mean "believes what I believe", especially in political contexts), which, for lack of a better word, I can only call an immature point of view.

Anyhow, it hardly seems fair to refer to someone as "propaganda resistant" when the reason they are resistant is that they literally can't perceive it. That's like crediting my dog for not falling for [your favorite obviously false ideology here]; that's not really a plus in her column.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These thoughts have long been a serious inspiration for us as we home-educate our eight children. (25 (long done) down to 8.)

Sayers is also one of the world's best crime novelists (the Lord Peter Whimsey series), the first woman PhD from Oxbridge, and made one of the most compelling translations of Dante. Brilliant woman.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I bet you're one of very few eight-child fathers on HN -- good going! I'm one of eight, but father of two. I haven't read any other Sayers, but intend to now.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My wife and I are thinking about how to educate our daughter, so I've been doing some reading. I found this essay by Sayers very compelling: use a child's built-in stages of learning for what they're worth.

Our daughter is only 2.5, but she's a top-notch "Poll-Parrot" already. Cram in the knowledge when they're good at memorizing, then teach them how to use it and what it means later, when they're better at thinking.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Is mathematics a sub-department of logic? One might call "distinguo" here.

2\. Is it possible that advertising and propaganda are simply not worth the trouble in a society that has little disposable income and where the opinion of the greatest number of its members has no effect?

@-321abc: If you are trying to illustrate Ms. Sayers' assertions about modern education, congratulations.</comment>


"If KickassTorrents Is a Criminal Operation, Google Should Start Worrying" - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/if-kickasstorrents-is-a-criminal-operation-google-should-start-worrying-161002/ <comment><USER2> This argument brought to you by the same people who think that, "If copyright is inherited through XOR, then having copyrighted this one thing, I can claim copyright on everything in the universe, because any sequence of bits can be generated from mine with the appropriate XOR operations!" ([0]) Lo, your mighty logic has caused the entire edifice of intellectual property law to crumble!

Except, no. Society and the law are not dumb automatons, and can in fact tell the difference between Google and "KickassTorrents". So when Vaulin gets a jail sentence and Google _doesn 't_ start getting worried, these guys may be baffled, but the world will keep right on going.

[0]: [http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23](http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23)</comment>


The Horror of setting up a Google+ account for my mom - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/114289448591067978562/posts/2QoEnp3LyEH

<comment><USER2> I've been a social media programmer since 2001 and personally I think Google+ needs a paper book to explain how to use it.

I always have people trying to get me to join them in hangouts and sometimes it works, but often it takes me 10 or 15 minutes to get the invitation and actually get into the hangout.

The funniest time was when it wanted me to update the software on my mac and it gave me step-by-step instructions to open a terminal window and use the command line to do the update.

I give Google credit for developing a sharing model that's different from the Facebook and Twitter model, so that Google+ isn't just an imitation of it's competitors. On the other hand, I dont know if I like sender-controlled sharing... There are so many people that want to spam me with this or spam me with that, and I'm not just talking about Nigerian spammers, I'm talking about close friends, family members, C-level people at places I work with and so forth. I'd rather see an intelligent social media platform that helps me pick out what I want and what I need to know; Facebook comes closer to that.

<comment><USER3> I'd love to see good, simple two-way sharing control. I should be able to decide who a post is visible to, and they should be able to decide what proportion/type of my posts they want to see. G+ is better at the former while FB is better at the latter; neither do the whole package very well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is a random list of annoyances, not a horror story about setting up Google+. Ultimately, it sounds like the author's mom would prefer email to Google+.

I think Google+ is a good tool for groups larger than families, like companies. You might want to share things with your coworkers, but email doesn't scale. So you can instead have a nice access-controlled internal sharing site, and people that are interested in pictures of your CNC mill or whatever can see them. ("Pages" are great for things like your cafeteria posting menus or pictures of food.)

<comment><USER5> The issue I have with G+ within companies is that it leaks to the public side.

You can switch off some parts of it so the content is visible only internally, but your account picture, name, company you work for and the fact that you have an account are visible to anyone on G+.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google has some inner conflict here. The marketing strategy is "more private than Facebook" but the obvious way to measure the success of Google+ is by how much oversharing people are doing. Optimize for that and you get pushy UX like the one described. Hopefully they can figure out a more nuanced metric.

<comment><USER7> The network effect says that a person that's connected to five family members is not as (measurably) valuable as someone connected to fifty people.

If you were Google, which would you rather sell to advertisers, correlations between groups of five people of fifty?

<comment><USER8> Hmm, is this backed by data?

I mean that is it known that in current social networks a life-time value of a person that with 5 strong relationship ties is less valuable over time than a person who has 50 very very weak ties (like most of my Google+ followers, people who I don't know)

<comment><USER7> My conjecture on top of the general value of a more connected network.

What is Facebook's motivation for connecting people? Or Google's? Or LinkedIn's.

A newspaper sold millions of individual pairs of eyeballs to advertisers. I would think the large numbers of correlations available in a largely connected network would be much more valuable than unconnectable individuals.

<comment><USER8> But stronger ties could be more "sticky", i.e. it's harder to leave Facebook than Twitter because people (in general) have stronger ties to people they are connected in Facebook than in Twitter. Thus, life-time value of a stronger tie for the service provider is larger. This seems common sense, but I'm interested in if there's any kind of data what the ratio is. Inside a single service, of course, as values are not directly comparable over the services due to different business models)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi _ankit_, sorry to read that you and your mom had troubles with her initial Google+ experience. A few things sound like possible issues, and the whole thing is valuable feedback, so I'll file a few bugs, and pass the post along to our team. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks dewitt for the positive reply! It feels great to be heard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _she uses Google+ to stay in touch with other family members online ( < 10)_

What I don't understand is if you want to stay in touch with a small group of close acquaintances/family why not use email? It's vastly easier to use than any "social network"

<comment><AUTHOR> A big part of staying in touch is _sharing photos_ , and _video calling_. Especially, if you live far away from your family.

<comment><USER11> I once thought this but not again. Your family, at least the elders, would more appreciate that you pick up the phone or send postal mail than use technology.

You _think_ it's a big part but you are in fact making that personal connection weaker.

At the very most in the world technology, email would suffice for your family.

<comment><USER12> _Your family, at least the elders, would more appreciate that you pick up the phone or send postal mail than use technology._

Most of the elders in my family - talking people 65+ - have computers, use Facebook, to keep in touch. Most of my mother's _friends_ are on Facebook for that matter. They do appreciate a phone call, but for grand-baby pictures and video, that's where the action is.

My mother is the exception. At the age of 70, she's never touched a computer. She likely never will.

Anyway - my point is that my family is not exceptional, nor especially early- adopting. We're pretty typical Americans, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Those are valid points but Google has a different target.

The pages are designed to get the user to spend more time on G+.

</comment><comment><USER14> Google started their life with a simple UI that anyone could use. You simply entered keywords into a textbox and hit the enter key.

Suddenly all their new stuff is too complicated. Google+ and Google Listen are painful to use.

<comment><USER4> And that still exists. Now Google has other products too, which you can use if you want to, or not use if you don't want to.

<comment><USER14> All true. However surely Google want to deliver an intuitive and easy to use social media tool to their end users. I thought G+ is for the mass market - maybe it isn't.

Google+ is definitely not intuitive and during their recent upgrade have ripped off Facebook's profile and cover photo idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And you can't page down using the spacebar anymore. That seems like a fundamental feature of the modern Web browser that Google decided not to support, and for what reason?

<comment><USER16> Wait, really? It seems to work for me (Safari 5.1.4 / Chrome 20.0.1096.1 on Lion).

<comment><USER15> Definitely broken for me in Firefox 11 and 12 on Lion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Without getting into the specific point-by-point refutation of this because, some of it is valid, I must first wonder why it is that people assume that every product should fit every person.

My first reaction is how horrible it would be to set up a Google+ account for my dog. I mean, my dog doesn't even have hands! Pulling that back a little bit though, it starts off with "my mom isn't big about the internet."

More to the point, there isn't actually any 'horror' in 'setting up a Google+ account for his mom'. By all accounts, the lack of horror in the actual account setup tells me that it was probably a fairly trivial affair, or even, uneventful. I was expecting something about real name guideline violations or switching accounts being an issue, but that's not the case at all, it seems.

Perhaps the most legitimate complaint (to my ears, your mileage will vary) is that there are non-circled posts added to your stream. The 'promoted' or 'hot' posts or whatever could certainly do with a toggle permission or something for the 'closed circle' types, and I actually thought that there was a way to keep people's stuff out of your stream.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that you can't have every product fit every person, but isn't one of the primary selling points of Google+ that "you can have private conversations with small groups of family and friends". I would personally think the features and UX should be designed keeping that in mind.

Even saying so, a lot of the points I say there are potential usability issues for everyone (at least for me they are). For example, the big banner ads for mobile apps and Hangouts.

I agree, the title is a bit misleading. By "setup", I meant creating an account _and_ simplifying the user interface, and explaining to my mom how to start hangouts, share photos, etc.

<comment><USER17> Perhaps that's my point of contention. I think that, for sharing to small groups of individuals, G+ is the best platform around (though I haven't tried EveryMe as they aren't on Android). I type a message, I type a group or two, I hit enter. Done.

Sharing is simple.

Where it seems like your complaints lie are in getting too much information - above and beyond what has been shared.

To me, I suppose that's small potatoes. I get the occasional distraction in my stream, but Google's usually smart enough to make it relevant, and about half the time I see something from outside of my circles, it ends up drawing me into a conversation.

I am decidedly not your mom, and I don't mind it. Also, my stream is active enough that those 'outsiders' ever take up any significant percentage of it, so perhaps I'm unable to see it from her point of view, but I don't think that showing me things I like, that I might otherwise have missed, is a 'problem' that needs to be 'fixed'.

Again, just my opinion. Can I ask what other social networks your mom has used, and how she found those, in comparison?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it does depend how one is using Google+. I primarily use it to interact with small groups of friends and family who are using Google+ (which is not a lot), which might be very different from how you use it.

Also, these views are all mine, what triggered them was the annoyances I came across as I was trying to simplify the Google+ interface for my mom. I find Google+ great for sharing links, photos and doing hangouts and I definitely don't know of a better or simpler solution for private sharing among groups of people. Like you said, it is really simple to share.

I do feel strongly about letting users easily opt out of getting too much information. If I want to see what's trending, I can visit the Explore tab. Like the left navigation, maybe it makes sense to let you hide stuff on the right sidebar as well.

My main annoyance though is with the persistent adverts (the banners you see on Explore, Hangout and Photos pages). And the "in your face" banner that you cannot get rid of, if you have less than 10 people in Circles. The only way is to add strangers to your Circles to get rid of it. Would it be too bad to have a "X" icon on the top right to get rid of these?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DARPA's "Open Source" Projects - <AUTHOR> http://www.darpa.mil/opencatalog/

<comment><USER2> What's really cool is that they often have links to the papers generated--take the BET project, for example:

[http://www.darpa.mil/opencatalog/BET.html](http://www.darpa.mil/opencatalog/BET.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I like how they are all transparent about these things.</comment></comment>


Viruses are Largely Unrelated to Life on Earth. Where Do They Come From? - <AUTHOR> https://demystifyingscience.com/blog/2020/3/20/originofviruses <comment><USER2> It seems like the arguments made in the article would more readily support the idea that viruses are spontaneously forming on Earth than in space. If viruses are spontaneously forming on other planets or in interstellar space directly, then they should be forming on the Earth as well. I think the Earth is more likely for a number of reasons.

To start, viruses are generic material wrapped in proteins. The functionality of proteins depends on their shapes and the environment strongly affects the shape of a protein. Viruses that exist on Earth have proteins that are stable on Earth. A virus that comes from a different environment would be liable to fall apart on the Earth. RNA itself is pretty unstable by itself (hence why cells use DNA), but there are plenty of viruses that use it as their genetic material.

Infecting host cells is another matter. Viruses are generally pretty specific with their host cells. They enter host cells by binding to specific proteins on their surfaces. Once inside they take advantage of the specific cellular machinery present. For example, the polio virus has a single strand of RNA that codes for a single long polypeptide that is then sliced at specific point by host enzymes to produce the final viral proteins. Some viral proteins act to suppress the defenses of the cell and the immune system in general. An alien virus would be insanely lucky to be able to infect local life at all, let alone reproduce and spread. Unless life across the universe is incredibly similar.

Given these thoughts, it seems like it would be more likely for viruses to spontaneously form on Earth than another planet (or interstellar space). Viruses forming on Earth would have the advantage of starting with organic materials that already work with existing life. The Earth is generally protected from harsh radiation and extreme temperatures. The most important thing is that any forming viruses would have immediate (relative to crossing space) contact with host cells to infect and evolve.

The only reason it wouldn't be happening on Earth is if the Earth is completely unsuitable for it. Even if both are happening, the vast distances and harsh nature of space should shift the equilibrium strongly towards native viruses. But if the Earth is unsuitable for it then how are viruses able to survive and reproduce on a planet that's so unsuitable for them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's a complexity problem. Someone downthread pointed out that there are some viruses that are small - so small they consist of only two genes.

It's possible that the super simple minimalist viruses are spontaneously produced and abundant in the universe. If all that's necessary is a strand of nucelic acids and a repetitive peptide unit, then it's within the realm of possibility that these would form simply because it's thermodynamically favorable for them to fall together in some systems. Then, if they encounter a living being, they're able to piggyback on it to multiply, mutate, and recombine.

This could be further supported by the fact that viruses can coinfect cells and effectively transfer genetic and protein material between each other.

By this model the simplest viruses are just products of chemistry that, when exposed to life, gradually become more and more complex.

I guess the underlying point is that they could very well be forming on earth, continuously. If they are, then that would explain the baffling, unending diversity. They're just always forming new genetic material that gets iterated on until it works well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> To me the real question is whether any particular virus lineage evolved independently, or started out as an organelle or other apparatus of a cell, and got loose.

I doubt we will ever know, about most viruses, because they evolve so fast. But it would be seriously cool to find a bacterium using them for communication or as an extra-cellular library.

We already know about plasmids, of course, and there are plasmid viruses that dispense with the protein wrapping. But do any bacteria communicate, or store information in the environment, via non-viral genes wrapped in a viral protein coat? Would we notice if they did?

We still would not know whether the bacteria co-opted a virus, or developed the mechanism by itself. Indeed, it could be that the original developer of, say, those mosquito-shaped phages was wiped out when they went rogue.

<comment><AUTHOR> this is a fascinating line of inquiry, and comes down to the methods of detection being insufficiently fine-grain.

it's challenging to tell apart all of the pieces in a metagenomic sample except through assembly. A "viral plasmid" like you describe would go unnoticed simply because it would map to another sequence assembly.

there's indication of high copy-number plasmids in bacteria sometimes. not sure if anyone has looked to see if any of those are kept in the outside of the cell.

usually imaged cells are washed very well before imaging, otherwise background is off the charts...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On the face of it that statement appears to be self-contradictory, given that viruses use RNA or DNA, like all life on Earth?

<comment><USER5> Agreed, some of the reasoning for extraterrestrial origins of viruses could also be explained by terrestrial processes. For example, the fact that new viruses are being added as quickly as old ones degrade and disappear doesn't necessarily mean alien viruses, but could also be reservoirs of ancient viruses being released into the environment or rapid mutation of existing viruses. Viruses having an extraterrestrial origin implies either RNA is spontaneously self-generating in the universe in large quantities, or somehow getting carried over across interstellar space from an alien ecosystem, and there's not a lot of evidence for either case. But given that viruses can survive intact for long periods of time since they don't have to perform biological processes (and maybe even longer underground away from degrading UV light) and the vast diversity of life that has lived and gone extinct on this planet, I'd be more inclined to think we're getting infected by Mammoth diseases rather than Alien diseases.

This theory is less convincing when you consider that viruses don't seem to share any common genetic ancestry with organisms living today, but they could share genetic ancestry with extinct organisms that didn't leave leave any living descendants with genetic mutation adding even more obfuscation to their origins.

<comment><USER2> I don't think you'd even have to look at extinct life. There's so much life that hasn't been categorized. You can basically take a soil sample from anywhere in the world and find new microorganisms in it. Archea are a great example of this. They're small, single celled organisms. They're best known as being extremeophiles, but exist basically everywhere. But the majority of them are difficult to culture and study. What's particularly interesting is that viruses that infect archea are known to be very different from other viruses.

<comment><AUTHOR> So the crazy thing is that if you take a teaspoon of soil and sequence it for bacterial information, almost all of that information is similar to what's been found elsewhere. If you take that same teaspoon of soil and look for the viral genetic information in there, it's wholly unique. They seem completely unconnected to the rest of life, as far as nucleic acid signatures go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time evidence leans the author towards "viruses might come from space", I find myself leaning the other way.

My general view is that cellular life and viruses mutualistically co-evolved from life-like junk at the very beginning. Cells provide the metabolisms necessary to fight entropy. Viruses promote genetic diversity while acting as a stress-test to ensure cells can survive their environments. This seems separate from the trichotomy offered: \- Virus first \- Reductive virus \- Escaped genes

"If viruses originate from the cells that they interact with, one would expect there to be significant genetic overlap between the host and the parasite"

The generally small amount of genetic material in a virus is being used for _viral_ reproduction. I assume most functions encoded in the genomes of cells are useless and expensive for a virus to replicate. Hence, they'll drop out; we'll be left with oddball viral genes for viruses to do virus things.

[clipped list of reasons] "All of these facts together suggest that viruses are the raw material from which living creatures build their genetic material. They're like bricks in a building, ..." I think of viruses more as clipboards (like copy-paste in your OS). Great for moving info around, but wholly dependent on a cell metabolizing somewhere. Hardly building blocks.

"If that's the case, it's possible that the absolute simplest viruses, ones who consist of genetic information encased in a capsid made from a single repeating subunit, could be abiotic products of the cosmos. If that's the case, we would expect to still find viruses as you got further and further away from the surface of the Earth."

Considering the density of viruses in the ocean (mentioned by the author), it seems a simple gust of wind would be enough to cover the earth in viruses.

I believe extraterrestrial life is nearly certain and that viruses can survive in space. I also think viruses depend on host cells to reproduce. A virus would have to land in the primordial soup to be of any life-generating use. By that point there would be enough lifelike junk for the virus to be an unnecessary step in the recipe.

</comment><comment><USER7> Some viruses have only 2 genes. One for a protease enzyme, one for their outer shell. 2 genes. Isn't that incredible?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is! It's also why people are very much on the fence about them being alive.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, i think I lean towards no on that too...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where in the article does it say that "Viruses are Largely Unrelated to Life on Earth"?

<comment><AUTHOR> about 3/4 of the way down the page, just before the heading "Viruses all the way down"

"Except you know what's weird? Although the absolute diversity of prokaryotes is widely held to be unknown and unknowable at any scale, most new genetic information we find in bacteria is similar to genetic information we've seen elsewhere. It's a comforting reminder that, although large-grain diversity is uncountably large, most genes in diverse bacteria have sequence-based similarity. But when you sequence a sample of mixed viruses, most of that genetic information has never been seen before, anywhere. "</comment></comment>


Hacker News for spanish community - <AUTHOR> http://www.123emprender.com

<comment><USER2> Looks more like a clone of Reddit for the spanish community.</comment>


Abandoned stores, empty homes: why San Francisco's boom looks like a crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/09/san-francisco-gentrification-second-wave <comment><USER3> Like so many things in the Bay Area, this is a self-created problem. Despite living here, I have little sympathy for the sob-stories who voted for the exact policies that put them out of business. It infects every level of policymaker thinking (at least what they choose to publicly state and run for office on). It's a fruitless desire to resist development and population growth, no matter what the cost. And we're seeing the costs obviously now.

The political inclination of government (and the mistaken belief of voters) to "keep things the same" and prevent gentrification or any kind of development matching the demand for people to move here may play well for votes, but is causing every problem you can see.

The constraints on housing and development trickle down to _everything_. The cost of hiring people, the price of retail/commercial space, the inability to police / prevent crime, the emptying out of formerly affordable neighborhoods, traffic, homelessness, etc.

This is not a puzzle. When you make land so valuable (which pleases some), it leads to things that cannot show their value clearly to be priced out. And the very policies that are intended to protect the people who got here first (a very questionable policy), end up hurting them. The more you try to control rent, the worse the situation gets. Politicians intend well. But intentions are highly overrated. Effects are what matter.

As long as we refuse to build up, out, and have rational transportation systems (overcoming local inertia against building them), and accept that we're growing, this will continue.

<comment><USER4> I had an offer from a FAANG a few years back, for a BA job, and turned it down because I realized I couldn't afford to live there on the offer. I can't imagine how "ordinary" people survive.

<comment> blaser-waffle Roommates, long commutes, squatting, maybe some rent control.

Got an old friend in the Tenderloin, and he loves it, even though he's got a wife and 2 roommates.

<comment><USER4> I sort of regret having not done this in my 20s, but decades later, there's no way I'm putting up with that, when so many better alternatives are available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At least the writer understands incentives:

 _Since California passed Proposition 13 in 1978, property tax rates for those San Franciscans who owned property back then have been severely capped. Owners may pay Nixon-era property tax rates, while renting out those spaces at rates that have exploded in the last 40 years. They, too, can afford to let buildings sit empty._

There have also been vacancy taxes proposed: [https://reason.com/2019/12/10/san-francisco-ballot- measure-w...](https://reason.com/2019/12/10/san-francisco-ballot-measure- would-tax-empty-storefronts-in-attempt-to-boost-retail-sector/), but Prop 13 reform would seem to be the more obvious route.

<comment><USER6> Won't forcing property taxes up just force lower income owners to move?

You buy a home in a poor neighborhood. Twenty years later the value quadruples... and now the cost of living skyrocket?

Also, would make retiring tricky.

<comment><USER7> Yes which is why most proposals for reforming Proposition 13 would leave the current system in place for primary residences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Some might say this is all simply market Darwinism, just with more cold- > pressed beet juice. But it's interesting that the free market exists only on > one side of the equation. Since California passed Proposition 13 in 1978, > property tax rates for those San Franciscans who owned property back then > have been severely capped. Owners may pay Nixon-era property tax rates, > while renting out those spaces at rates that have exploded in the last 40 > years. They, too, can afford to let buildings sit empty.

Tax policies play a big role in setting up market distortions like those happening in San Francisco. It's not just the rate, but the basis. Strong Towns has a discussion of the idea that taxing land, not improvements leads to better outcomes:

> A parking lot in a bustling downtown is the classic example of a property > where nearly all of the value is in the land itself, not the asphalt on top > of it. In a rising market, you can hold onto the land and watch its value go > steadily up (thanks to all the things your neighbors are doing to make the > place more productive and successful). You can collect enough in parking > fees to cover the taxes, and cash out when you're ready to cash out. Your > property tax bill will be relatively low, because it's based on the sum of > land value and improvements. The land may be in a central, prized location, > but the "improvements" on the property (that's tax-assessor speak for any > sort of structure built on the land) are worth next to zero.

[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/5/whats-with- that...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/5/whats-with-that-empty- lot-in-the-heart-of-the-city)

This line of thinking may also apply to empty shops in SF. As long as the overall property is covering expenses, why bother making the improvements needed to attract new tenants (and thereby adding the tax burden) when you can just sit back and watch real estate prices head to the moon.

<comment><USER9> You know, the most ironic thing about all this is that Henry George invented Georgism in... San Francisco: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George#Political_and_eco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George#Political_and_economic_philosophy) The more things change, the more they stay the same.

<comment><USER8> That was a relevant passage indeed - hadn't heard of George before:

> George was in a position to discover this pattern [mere land possession > harms the poor, and can be discouraged through a land tax], having > experienced poverty himself, knowing many different societies from his > travels, and living in California at a time of rapid growth [1870s]. In > particular he had noticed that the construction of railroads in California > was increasing land values and rents as fast as or faster than wages were > rising.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George#Political_and_eco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George#Political_and_economic_philosophy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a problem all over in many big cities. Toronto is experiencing the same issues. Small businesses are being pushed out. You have a Deli or a Coffee shop that has been there for decades close and some kind of Boutique shop move in since they can afford the 5-10k a month in rent.

The trend now is for small shopping plazas or outdoor malls being sold off to developers to build Condo complexes. Complete neighborhoods have no shopping anymore forcing residents to drive instead of walk to get groceries or enjoy a stroll.

It doesn't help that these cash strapped cities (Toronto) just rubber stamp any new development since the tax haul will be several times what they got for what was there. A 20 story Condo brings in a lot more revenue then a parking lot and strip mall. I won't even start about all the green space they are selling off to developers. It's out of control.

<comment><USER11> > It doesn't help that these cash strapped cities (Toronto) just rubber stamp > any new development since the tax haul will be several times what they got > for what was there.

The problem is not too much building, but not enough. The only real solution to the real estate problems in expensive cities is to get enough new building that real estate values tank.

I could fix the SF real estate market in 10 seconds (although it would take maybe 10-20 years for developers to enact the change).

1\. Minimum residential zoning is 15 story multi-family (subject to engineering limitations)

2\. Axe rent control

3\. No requirement to conform to the character of the neighborhood

This would make lots of people very unhappy. People wouldn't like it that huge buildings are going up next to their 1 story house. People wouldn't like it that their real estate values will tank my 80-90%. That's a big part of the reason why there will never be a fix.

But that level of change is what's necessary to fix the problems the city has.

<comment><USER12> One thing I don't understand is the "their real estate values will tank 80-90%" part. I live in a transforming rural area and one-by-one all the farmers have been selling their land to developers to make planned neighborhoods. They control the supervisors, zoning, and planning boards, and they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to allow these developments. However, their land values have gone up a ton in the last decade: basically a whole order of magnitude from on the order of 10's of thousands per acre to 100's of thousands per acre.

I think the same applies to your single family home next to a 15 story condo building. Instead of selling to a another family, now they're selling to a big developer and can price it waaaaay higher, because the developer will be getting significantly more value out of the land than they were.

And still, they'll not want to do it. There's still farmers holding out, despite single digit million dollar offers for 10-ish acre plots. And it's great if a small number of them do hold out, because it makes it possible to have some green space down the line when the area has fully developed to a single family house level suburb.

But I think the main issue is the culture. Farmers want to maintain their way of life. Single family home people want to maintain their way of life. And so on. People don't like change.

<comment><USER11> > One thing I don't understand is the "their real estate values will tank > 80-90%" part. I live in a transforming rural area and one-by-one all the > farmers have been selling their land to developers to make planned > neighborhoods. They control the supervisors, zoning, and planning boards, > and they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to allow these > developments. However, their land values have gone up a ton in the last > decade: basically a whole order of magnitude from on the order of 10's of > thousands per acre to 100's of thousands per acre.

> I think the same applies to your single family home next to a 15 story condo > building. Instead of selling to a another family, now they're selling to a > big developer and can price it waaaaay higher, because the developer will be > getting significantly more value out of the land than they were.

I think the way to think about property values is this: what is the highest value economic activity that can be accomplished on the property?

In your first example, it's pretty clear that building lots of houses (in the presence of sufficient demand) is a much higher value economic activity than farming.

The home to condo example is a bit more complicated. For the very first person to sell to a developer, I think your point is sound.

However, each additional bedroom that's created in the city decreases the value of all other bedrooms by a small amount. This not only directly decreases the value of a single family home, but it also decreases the value of a condo building, which means that developers will be willing to play less money for land.

Eventually, builders will stop building - the cost of construction will be more than they can sell new condos for. At that point, I believe the remaining home owners will have suffered a dramatic decrease in the value of their property.

Where does the equilibrium land? I don't think anyone knows for sure. But new construction goes up in some pretty low value real estate markets. 80-90% is just a guess on my part, but I don't think it's too far off based on current prices.

<comment><USER12> That's a great explanation. One other thing that contributes to the equilibrium I think we haven't mentioned here is migration. You mention that as the number of accommodations increase, the price of existing residences is shifted down. This is supply. But demand is changing too. And I think that demand to live in the bay area is absolutely huge. As supply increases, I believe that either new people will move in to meet that supply. Or, under- housed current residents of the bay area will level up (ie. move out of a van / garage / attic and into a "real" dwelling).

Another thing to mention is that the remaining single family houses will have a different kind of value once they become rarer. Owning one of the final single family houses in San Francisco is the ultimate flex. You still have a backyard; you can still walk to things. So some super-rich person will come knocking and want to buy just as a status symbol or as a way to get the way of life they want but still in the city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't get it though, as a building owner, what do I gain by kicking out a tenant and then letting a building stay empty?

<comment><USER14> Managing tenants can be more trouble than it's worth. The people buying up these properties likely prefer security and liquidity more than maximizing their return. Tenants make the building more difficult to sell because they often come with very long leases.

There's also a strategy of waiting for rent prices to appreciate enough before leasing to corporate clients. You could get 10y $1000/mo from a small time coffee shop, or you can wait 5 years and maybe get Starbucks locked into a 10y, $5000/mo lease after the area grows up a bit.

<comment><USER15> Seeing this exact story happen all over DC right now. Just yesterday a locally owned bar announced it was closing because it couldn't come to terms on a new lease with the property owner. The insinuation was that the owner would happily let the place sit empty until a national chain was willing to take it.

Similarly, 14th St in DC even just a few years ago was becoming a vibrant, fun spot to shop, drink, and eat in. This was after years of neglect in the area. Over the last year or so though a string of bars and shops have closed and all been replaced with banks. Capital One Cafes, Citi, etc. I have no idea how all these banks are functioning (I thought brick and mortar banks were on their way out?) but it's a damn shame.

<comment><USER16> It's always a matter of some surprise to me just how much prime retail real estate banks fill up. As you say, it's not so much for the tellers any longer. But I guess it's to project an image for people getting loans or doing other types of more complex financial transactions. In general, they're likely profitable enough that even though the branches are inefficient in some sense, the fact that people will be more inclined to use financial institutions with local branches they can go into in person probably makes it a worthwhile tradeoff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> San Francisco is just a really poorly run city, but so many people are willing to look past that because there are tech jobs. There are literally people shooting heroin and smoking meth in public (across from City Hall no less), property crime is ignored, and they just keep trying to raise taxes and throw more money at the problem. It just seems like it's obvious they are making these problems worse and not better. I don't blame businesses for leaving. After the sky high rent and thefts, it's probably hard to survive. We chose this though.

<comment><USER18> Remember that social services and law enforcement are starved for cash because of Prop 13 and that the oligarchy doesn't have to care - they can afford gated estates and private security. That's the Brazilian model.

<comment><USER19> I've read a lot of reports that most of the big cities in California are going downhill hard. I'm nowhere near informed enough to have an opinion on these complex issues, but the constant reports of "state of emergency" and "poop patrols" make me angry for the people who live there.

It's ponderous how some of the wealthiest cities in the world can't manage themselves. How do they not sweep out the current administration, and bring in people willing to change things?

<comment><USER20> I'm not saying the problems don't exist, but it feels like they have been amplified in a smear campaign. I think there's been a lot of propaganda to make SF and California look terrible in general, for political reasons.

Washington D.C. has a large percentage of homeless people than SF. It has been documented that other cities will buy bus passes for homeless persons to get them to California cities or other places like Portland, Oregon. It's a nationwide problem and it feels like the places trying to help the most are the ones getting flak for it.

You simply can't fix this problem from 1 or 2 states - or a few well known cities.

<comment><USER17> I'm not part of a smear campaign, but in the last year I've had homeless tweakers squatting in my garage, had to get a restraining order against a mentally ill and violent homeless person who just decided to harass my apartment building, I've seen a HUGE guy sexually assault multiple women on BART, I've seen multiple people smoking meth/crack and shooting heroin in BART on my way to work, I see feces and needles DAILY. It's not a smear campaign. We're sick of living in these Medieval conditions when we work this hard and pay this much. It's not like this anywhere else in the country. It's really gotten worse in the past 2 years and seems to be getting worse by the day now.

The final straw for me, was when a bullet came through the wall of my bathroom at 1AM and when I called the cops they took 2 hours to get there, threw the bullet in a ziplock bag, then never called me or had any follow up. If this city doesn't take gun shots or violent crime seriously, then what good is the government or PD?

<comment><USER21> Whereabouts were you living, if I can ask?

<comment><USER17> Glen Park near Bernal Heights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is an excellent documentary by Fredrik Gertten called "Push" that explores this phenomenon, definitely worth a watch if there's a screening nearby: [http://www.pushthefilm.com/](http://www.pushthefilm.com/)

<comment><USER23> Looks interesting, but it seems there is no way to see this film outside of the organized screenings which for most people means that they will never see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Seems like an important topic to discuss. Serious question, how do should I understand the concluding sentence/word,

"But walk through parts of San Francisco today, and you get a different sense altogether: not an uncanny effectiveness, but a panicked swirl of homeless capital."

What is meant by "homeless capital"? does it mean SF is the capital city for homeless like Washington DC, or does capital go to opposite of venture capital, like in banking/finance/Wall St?

<comment><USER25> Is that really a "serious question?"

There are a lot of homeless people in San Fransisco. Nothing else needs to be construed.

<comment><USER26> Possibly the phrase 'homeless capital' could mean human capital that is experiencing homelessness? The way the clause is constructed is pretty unclear. It could just mean there are a lot of homeless people, and is failing at being poetic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's a bubble. Get out while you can. Properties with zero income being sold and resold in a closed loop- an ourobouros of prosperity. What could go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER28> So what would the unintended consequences be for changing property tax to be a percentage of the actual annual rent for leased or pay-to-stay properties, assume a statutory minimum rent for vacant properties, and stay with assessed valuation times mill rate for owner-occupied properties? The property tax assessed in this way would be deducted from income, to avoid double-taxation.

The desire to minimize the cost of owning a property should create an incentive to ensure a residence is occupied by _at least one person who can pay_ , so the statutory minimum would probably be set such that renting at below-market rates would be slightly less costly after taxes and insurance than the tax rate for a vacancy.

</comment><comment><USER29> Blaming prop 13 for high housing costs ignores the real reasons - <USER2> zoning codes, too many environmental reviews, and too many regulations in general. These combined make it nigh impossible to build enough housing around the Bay Area for rent to come down. Rent control makes things worse by reducing the amount of profit on each building. Then add "affordable housing requirements" which mean each new complex has to essentially lose money on 20% or so of the units to give them to low income people... and no wonder the rent is too $&@! high.

I mean look at NYC - property taxes are really high there and the rent is almost as high as SF, and higher than LA.

</comment><comment><USER30> Important subject, poor article, IMO.

Here's a background piece that covers most of the history and issues: [https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-housing- crisis...](https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-housing-crisis- history-2017-7)

TL;DR: It's complicated.

Also (and especially for those of us from the Old World) remember that SF is ridiculously young as cities go, even for American cities. The continent was largely settled from East to West. The Western part of the city was sand dunes and scrub. People panned for gold next to Lake Merced.

Here's a thing from 2016 "Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments" : [https://experimental- geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme...](https://experimental- geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employment-construction-and-cost-of-san.html)

He got some data:

> I set out to replicate the DataBook's methodology over a wider range of > years, but quickly gave up on including just two-bedroom apartments, because > ads in the early 1960s rarely referred to apartment sizes in these terms. > Instead, for each first Sunday in April from 1948 through 1979, plus a few > other years, I made a list of all the advertised unfurnished apartments, > flats, houses, and, later, condos, regardless of size, that were advertised > in the Chronicle. Mostly I used the San Francisco Public Library's page > scans of the newspaper but resorted to microfilm for the few later years > where no page scans are available.

Here's the main take-away:

> in 1956, apartments began to be listed in increasing numbers, but their > prices also began to rise. Overall, they went up 6.6% every year. Today's > outrageous prices are exactly in line with the 6.6% trend that began 60 > years ago.

So, big long complicated history, dead simple stable 6.6%/year increase.

\- - - -

Solutions: Bucky Fuller mega-city Old Man River City

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project)

[https://solutions.synearth.net/2002/11/24/](https://solutions.synearth.net/2002/11/24/)

Look at the cross-section: the structure is hollow. It's built like a suspension bridge. Imagine rotating the Golden Gate bridge around a vertical axis though its midpoint. See the article for the rest of the description.

Integrated with ecologically harmonious waste reclamation and "bioreactors" to make _arcologies_ : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology)

A few of these in the CA Central Valley on the Sacramento river would take all the housing pressure off the cities.

</comment><comment><USER31> Government must remove the ability to claim an income loss on the balance sheets of property owners that purposely leave spaces empty. There is no reason to double (or more) the rent on a space. They are doing it because maybe someone will pay, and until then, they get to claim the loss of income as a write off on their taxes. If this is not true, then how can property owners, who claim that they need the new rental rate, afford to leave a place empty for a year or more???

<comment><USER32> > they get to claim the loss of income as a write off on their taxes.

This is not true.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentalreal-estate- loss-...](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentalreal-estate-loss- allowance.asp)

<comment><USER31> How do you know that the owner of the building that Sparky's was in, would not qualify for this deduction?

<comment><USER33> That's not the point. Even if they did qualify, you can't claim loss of income as an expense. In other words, you can't say "well, the market rate for this space is $30,000 per year but it was vacant, so I get a $30,000 deduction!". That's not how taxes work, at all. So this isn't an incentive to leaving a space vacant.</comment></comment></comment></comment>