Google plans to beam 5G internet from solar drones - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/30/google-project-skybender/ <comment><USER2> This can't get here fast enough. To people who don't really get why they're doing this, or who think it only makes sense in undeveloped regions with no cell towers, I wrote about this here:

[http://collectiveidea.com/blog/archives/2016/01/15/wisp- tria...](http://collectiveidea.com/blog/archives/2016/01/15/wisp-trials- waiting-for-the-balloons/)

Basically, if you think that in developed areas cell tower density has or should have an inverse correlation with the cost of bandwidth, then you don't live in the real world. There's a reason that there are only a few network operators on most towers, and those guys get away with highway robbery in terms of pricing and quotas.

Here is the money graf:

"It's when I began seriously working on the cell tower option that the beauty and inevitability of the balloon idea truly clicked for me. Don't get me wrong — on its face the Internet balloon idea is still actually nuts, but it's vastly better than the terrestrial alternatives, which are all terrible because of one fatal problem: any moderately long-range wireless bandwidth solution needs line-of-sight to work, which means you need elevation, and (absent a viable balloon technology) elevation is a function of geography, which makes it eminently exploitable by rent-seekers.

This geography-based rent-seeking, by both wireless carriers (via national tower networks) and fixed-line ISPs (via cable, fiber, phone networks, and trunk locations) is the only reason that bandwidth quotas exist in 2016, and it's what brings the Internet-of-balloons idea down from cloud cuckooland and into the realm of inevitability."

<comment><USER3> I share your general optimism on sky-based broadband, but I have to admit that I do not follow your argument about rent-seekers.

All physical space, even space in the sky, is in limited supply. So why does the rent-seeking nature of cell towers make sky-based broadband inevitable?

I can see why sky-based broadband affords a huge competitive advantage, allowing Google to beam 1gbps for $5/mo to the 15 million people who live in Northern California.

But why does that make it more _likely_ to come to pass? Are balloon/drone flight plans inevitably easier to file than zoning permits for cell towers? Won't altitude eventually be auctioned off by the FCC? I fear that part of what makes sky-based broadband attractive is the perhaps naïve notion that government will always control the skies in the relatively light-handed way in which it currently controls the skies.

<comment><USER4> I think the reason rent-seeking is less of an issue in the sky (although I don't have any opinion about viability) compared to the ground is that the earth is not flat / smooth (also has buildings on it), but if you go even 1000 feet in the air there are no objects ruining line of sight. There's a lot of sky. Even sky 1000 feet above a cliff side is sky, you probably don't want to put a land-based cell tower there though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish I could understand how engineers are able to transmit so much wireless data at those distances, with so many devices at the same time.

I guess antenna technologies have improved a lot for the last 10 years, and I still wonder where the subscription cost goes: are there patents for those new types of antennas, are those antennas expensive to build, or does the cost just reflect the amount of antennas installed and the infrastructure built to achieve that wireless bandwidth?

Other question is, if you have solar drones, how much upload (from the device to the drone) can you achieve, since batteries are still very much limited?

<comment><USER6> Google's Loon Project involves having the balloons float _over_ the weather. So cloud cover isn't the issue. Batteries only have to function at night. Furthermore each drone will in software limit itself to N active connections (just like cell towers do), so you just use that N to calculate max battery draw, then size batteries appropriately.

<comment><USER5> I was talking about the battery of smartphones. In general smartphones are good at receiving data, but not so good at sending it because their batteries are very limited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where I live in Maine, this is a third world country when it comes to connectivity.

The best you can get is about 25mbps when sitting right under our only cell phone tower in town, it is about 0.5mbps _when I can get a signal_ at my house.

My wired home Internet? 15/1 ADSL2. We have cable, they offer speeds up to 30/5 or so, but they force you to bundle it with cable TV to get speeds that high, and I don't want cable TV in my house, nor do I want to pay >$100 for internet only twice as fast; plus, during peak hours, the network falls apart, our local ADSL2 network doesn't.

I've written to Google, trying to get them to deploy Google Fiber in Maine, since we need it badly: we don't have a monopoly, we just don't have anything recognizable as the Internet, not the way the rest of the US gets it.

Hopefully, they start deploying this in my area sometime in the next few years.

<comment><USER8> are these figures in MB ? 15M down, 1M up ? (if so, tbh, this is above comfortable IMO). How much that ISP is charging you for this plan ?

<comment><USER7> 15/1 in mbit. I always quote those numbers in mbit.

$45.89 currently.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, for that amount of money 15Mbit is anemic.

<comment><USER9> I grew up in rural Iowa. My parents are stuck with 3/1 for $85/mo. And it's that or dial up.

<comment><USER7> Is that with or without phone? I get local + in state + national calling + that 15/1 for like $86.xx total/mo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think we should be working more on improving consumer and enterprise software for local area networks!

The global internet does not need the level of hops we are using to transmit data. Things should be done locally first. I don't even want to say "offline first" because the idea of a binary online/offline is again a symptom of thinking that one is either "connected to the internet" or not, with the former implying very comfortable access to the internet to get anything done.

We should be encouraging things like IPFS. Back in the day, usegroups and other software did things better than the glorified mainframe approach of today.

</comment><comment><USER11> So how come millimeter wave networking from Google is a good thing, but the when the ex-Aereo guys announce a similar thing everyone is skeptical?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984755)

<comment><USER12> Maybe because the aero guys had legal issues with their last product. That being said, as a Bostonian I am excited about this potential internet option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe this has already been asked, but the part that I struggle to understand is what about TX ? I mean is a smartphone going to have enough wattage to beam a message back to this drone ? If not then what's the plan for solving that 1/2 of the equation.

</comment><comment><USER14> This only makes sense if you want to cover large sparse regions that don't already have cell phone operators.

Tower range is getting smaller to reuse spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER15> Honest statement: people in big orgs string together stuff in mad lib format to get headlines. Speaking from personal experience, this is the way academics works. From what I can tell there is a disproportionate amount of this amongst the more stately corporations, IBM et al. too. I say this to advise consideration about how much impact will come of such "impressive" projects.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is 5G even an accepted standard yet?

<comment><USER17> Not even close. Everyone and their brother has a "vision" for what it will look like, but back in the real world there is nothing solid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I expect that neither Google or Facebook will become a next generation ISP:

[http://vita.mcafee.cc/PDF/feint.pdf](http://vita.mcafee.cc/PDF/feint.pdf)

<comment><USER19> I agree - the entire purpose of this is to _threaten_ other companies into providing better service. Same exact thing with Google Fiber.

"If you don't provide service to our expectations, we will step in."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So how about them balloons tho? PR train running out of steam already? Starting a new one? Pay no attention to ad revenue behind the curtain.

</comment><comment><USER21> The future are super dense networks Lifi, 60GHz, then 5Ghz, then 2.4-1.8GHz because that will give the most bandwidth for the buck. You always want higher frequency first because it can carry more and then fall back to lower frequencies if you are out of coverage of the high freq.

Outside developed areas there will be internet by solar drones and lower orbit satellite internet.

<comment><USER22> The bandwidth doesn't depend on the frequency you're occupying, but on the amount of spectrum available: you "usually" get in the order of 1 bps for every Hz of spectrum available for mobile: a 20Mz chunk of spectrum will give you ~20Mbps, no matter if it is 700MHz or 5 GHz. (Please notice that YMMV, LTE gets several times that, illustrative, bla bla bla, etc.).

Higher frequencies have awful penetration and range, that's why today you define who wins in the mobile game by the amount of 700MHz and 800MHz spectrum they own. In other words, lower frequency spectrum is (within certain limits) always better.

<comment><USER23> Cellular network capacity is a function of channel width, modulation, and spatial reuse. Because there are many more low-frequency channels of a given width than high frequency ones, it's much easier to justify very wide channels at higher frequencies. The better propagation of lower frequencies is also a double edged sword. It's much easier to build a very dense cellular network if cell sites far apart can't hear each other (causing co-channel interference). Also, because higher frequencies propagate more directionally, it's also easier to take advantage of spatial reuse techniques.

<comment><USER24> > there are many more low-frequency channels of a given width than high > frequency ones, it's much easier to justify very wide channels at higher > frequencies.

Right conclusion, wrong (mis-stated?) premise. There are more high-frequency channels of a given width than low-frequency ones. 700-800 MHz is a whopping 12.5% change, and it gets you 100 MHz to work with, but 5.725-5.875 is only a 2.5% change and gets you 150 MHz to work with.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, meant that the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> pigeon + flashmedia > bad broadband [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8248056.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8248056.stm)

</comment><comment><USER25> Isn't millimeter just one of a zillion ideas that are being lobbied for 5G?

</comment><comment><USER8> Random question: Anyone in rural areas with mesh networks ?

</comment><comment><USER26> Didn't they already promised the MOON at some point?

</comment><comment><USER27> I have been toying with one fantastic idea lately. I know why it would seem like a pure fantasy, and I'm not pretending that it's anything more at the moment, but give it some benefit of a doubt.

It's quite simple. Imagine, just for a second, that current trillion evaluations for all the unicorns will turn out to be true in some point in the future. How can it be? What will be going on in this fantastic world? There's only one possible explanation: internet ate everything.

The dotcom boom hanged on a very simple, explicit assumption: that internet commerce is viable. That people actually will spend money on the internet. Of course, it lead to a bubble, and that bubble burst, but the assumption itself turned out to be correct. More than that: the valuation that NASDAQ have given to the whole internet industry in the late 90s is a reality know. Of course, individual 90s startups weren't worth that money, but internet industry as a whole certainly is. Even if you judge it just by turnover, without even looking at prospects of growth.

So, the first step of internet revolution that was promised by dotcoms already happened. But what about the next step? No one is really talking about it, because it's too fantastic to believe in and nobody wants to be laughed at. But we know what it can theoretically be: the current wave of SV unicorns will _eat_ their respective industries.

Imagine it. 90% of taxi industry is Ubers, Lyfts, Getts. 90% of book industry is Amazon. (Wait, that almost already happened). 90% of TV is Netflix and stuff. 90% of payments are Square and Paypal. 90% of hotel industry is AirBnB, Booking.com and something else. Walmart have gone after Blockbuster, everybody orders groceries with online drone delivery. Giant malls stand abandoned, everybody's ordering from AliBaba. And so on.

Of course it sounds a little stupid; I drastically simplify it, so we can talk about it without spending time arguing about inconsequential details. And don't forget, all this is more like a fantasy right now.

But the point is, in this fantastic world such initiatives by Google, just as free basics by Facebook have nothing to do with charity. Remember, how in the 90s, the only companies that really made money of internet were telecom companies, because the only sure way to monetize an internet user was to charge him for access? (Oh, and porn of course). In contrast, in this fantasy world, the cost of internet access will become insignificant compared to all the money you can get from a person with internet access. And in this fantasy world internet corporations will gladly provide you the access for free. May be they will still charge you a couple of cents for 100Mbps to 1Gbps upgrade, but the 0 (zero) bps to 1Mbps upgrade will make so much money to them that you have no chances of paying for it.

<comment><USER28> You know you could've condensed that entire post down to "I think Internet will eventually be free and subsidized by the companies that profit from the usage of it."?

Hell, Facebook's already doing it with Internet.org.

<comment><USER27> Didn't have enough time to write it shorter, I'm afraid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In the mean time, I am stuck at slow 3G. Are there regulations for the frequencies at which they can transmit their services? Err?

<comment><USER30> It's very strange that "3G" networks are so slow. HSPA+ supports 22 Mb/s and has _better_ spectral efficiency than LTE, so why do we never see anything approaching that in real life?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If your payload is power generation equipment, and you are able to stay airborne for an indefinite period, is that not perpetual motion?

The usual preventative physics apply; friction, efficiency.

<comment><USER32> It takes energy from the sun, it doesn't generate energy internally

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> And the drones are going to stream pictures of me to google servers while hovering over my head 24x7. Those pictures will be analyzed, A/B tested and ad brokered to friendly ad-triggered on-demand services. Wall-e, red is the new blue.</comment>


It Must Be A Marketing Problem - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2010/02/11/it-must-be-a-marketing-problem/ <comment><USER2> These Steve Blank stories always get to the heart of the matter. What was particularly interesting about this one was that early sales were to friends and close contacts, totally skipping the "customer discovery" step.

My favorite line is _Note that most VP of Sales' have world-class antenna for career danger_.

<comment><USER3> That was the part that really stuck with me too. The previous startup I worked for sold energy-use reduction software and had initial success selling to local governments who wanted to look "green" and help a local startup (outside the valley). Once that limited market was sold to they started having trouble selling to the wider commercial market and didn't make sales targets. Government wasn't really buying to make a successful return on investment so perhaps the CD was also "hollow" as with friends and family.

<comment><USER4> Gosh. Lets just hope that we don't suffer the same fate. Of course it helps that almost none of our friends or family are industrial scale power users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a small startup the analog to this is turning on a wide-scale Google adwords campaign with no site optimization, no keyword optimization, and no idea about what your customers/potential customers want, and watching Google charge you $2000 in a week.

<comment><USER6> If you don't know your customers needs, you have no way of doing efficient "site optimization / keyword optimization".

The lesson everyone should take home is this ... for any buck you spend on marketing / sales / R&D, you need to have feedback (OK, so you've spent $2000 on Google Ads ... but what's the ROI on that?). Can you measure that return? If not, it's money going down the drain (startup or not).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kind of sad how they get in a consultant and then won't listen to what he had to say.

Apart from that: How could you protect yourself from not being mislead from the first sales through people personally known to the founders? They might tell their friends etc., when could you assume that they buy it not through a certain personal link?

<comment><USER8> In this case the board was complicit - they provided sales leads as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly (and probably somewhat obviously), this lines up very well with Moore's Crossing the Chasm. The company in the example assumed that their innovators (the friends/family and references of board members) would be representative of their early adopters, and possibly even the early majority. It seems to me that they fell into the crack between innovators and early adopters, without even reaching the chasm.

</comment><comment><USER10> By itself, why is it bad for sales people in the same company to use different slide decks or approaches?

<comment><USER11> It's not. But like Steve Blank said:

 _The standard corporate presentation wasn't working, so the Boston sales rep made up his own. (I asked for the Boston sales rep because in the U.S. they're furthest from the Silicon Valley corporate office and any oversight.)

We call the five other sales people and find that they are also "winging it."_

<comment><USER12> In other words, there was no repeatable sales model; knowledge about what the customers want and how to sell to them was not converging.

<comment><USER4> It seems unlikely that there was even a solid value proposition.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why the elites always rule - <AUTHOR> http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/01/why-elites-always-rule <comment><USER2> Consult dictionary:

elite: a group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group.

So "by definition" would be the answer? Whichever group rules is the elite.</comment>


Scale-Up Leadership Lessons I've Learned Over 9 Years as HubSpot's CEO - <AUTHOR> https://readthink.com/scale-up-leadership-lessons-i-ve-learned-over-9-years-as-hubspot-s-ceo-39521f5b7567 <comment><USER2> Regarding EV>Team>Self -- My favorite memory at HubSpot is Brian Halligan taking the time to sit us all down and watch Twelve O'Clock High. A movie about a World War II bomber unit that faltered after the general in charge valued team > mission > self. He paused every 10 minutes to ask us questions about the choices the general was making. It was one of the most unusual approaches to teaching management, but it stuck with me.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is one of the best management posts I have ever read. Does anybody know any articles / books like this one (not giving common sense advice)?

<comment><USER4> These are just a few pieces I've liked recently.

[http://firstround.com/review/radical-candor-the- surprising-s...](http://firstround.com/review/radical-candor-the-surprising- secret-to-being-a-good-boss/)

[https://medium.com/@gerstenzang/21-management-things-i- learn...](https://medium.com/@gerstenzang/21-management-things-i-learned-at- imgur-7abb72bdf8bf)

[https://hbr.org/2015/11/how-company-culture-shapes- employee-...](https://hbr.org/2015/11/how-company-culture-shapes-employee- motivation)

[https://getlighthouse.com/blog/company-growth-everything- bre...](https://getlighthouse.com/blog/company-growth-everything- breaks-25-employees/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great read, thanks for sharing. I'm interested in learning more about the management transition discussed at the beginning though and what it looks like in practice. Once you discover that a team has lost confidence in its manager, what steps are taken to transition them? Discuss the issue, agree amicably to part ways, timing, etc? And how is that typically received?

</comment><comment><USER6> I think all the questions are right, but I find that ENPS (like NPS) to be of questionable value, at best. (The research & calculations behind NPS are suspect and non-predictive, and are probably used in the wrong way by most organizations. I can see ENPS being even worse, especially given that most HR groups within organizations have marginal competency in what they are _supposed_ to be competent at, much less statistics.)

</comment><comment> m-i-l Good article. Although I'm not sure the Bus Analogy is a good name. When I saw the heading I thought it was going to be something related to waiting for ages and then 3 coming at once. In actual fact the analogy is about (i) strategic direction, (ii) excited passengers, and (iii) fuel. However, buses here often go on circular routes, and many people aren't particularly looking forward to reaching their destination. Perhaps it should be a coach analogy rather than a bus analogy, i.e. long distance travel more likely to be associated with holidaying, as opposed to short distance travel often associated with commuting.

</comment><comment><USER7> Like the idea of employee NPS

</comment><comment><USER8> Commenting so that I can read it again and again.

<comment><USER9> And again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like the first approach could be ripe for perverse incentives. How do you prevent that? It seems like what you are proposing is too simplistic (or maybe it works for your organization based on your hiring practices, but will not necessarily work everywhere).

Also do the same rules hold for higher up in the management (like say for instance the CEO ;-)).

<comment><USER11> > Also do the same rules hold for higher up in the management (like say for > instance the CEO ;-)).

Brian Halligan (the author) is the CEO.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, was aware of that -- was just trying to check if the CEO thought that a metric used to move around other managers could be applied (atleast in part) to the CEO too...or what he thought about that?</comment></comment></comment>


Patent #7028023: Linked List - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/patents/US7028023

<comment><USER2> This has been discussed before, it is not just a linked list.

It is a list which has elements that not only point to the next element, but the element after it, and so on. (As to provide a recovery method if one element is to be destroyed, or to ease implementation for removal etc.

However that's still fringing on patent trolls.

<comment><USER3> And, as presented in this patent, its a trivial enhancement on a conventional linked list. This is a patent for a _data structure_. There is no implementation there. Hell, there is no _algorithm_ there. Its just someone who said, "Hey, I can put two forward pointers in each element of a linked list!" and wrapped a bunch of legalistic crap around it. This patent doesn't need prior art to be invalid.

<comment><USER4> > _its a trivial enhancement on a conventional linked list._

Indeed it is. The patent should not have been granted, and from previous discussions about this, there is ample evidence of prior art.

However, exaggerating this patent by claiming it is a "linked list" patent diminishes the conversation around patents. It doesn't make patents sound worse. It makes those who are anti-patent seem disingenuous. This patent is bad enough on its own merits without implying that someone was granted a patent for the linked list concept as a whole. If Subaru were issued a patent for a new method of fuel injection, would it be appropriate to claim that they were issued a patent for the internal combustion engine?

> _This is a patent for a data structure. There is no implementation there._

What is a data structure if not an implementation?

<comment><USER3> > _However, exaggerating this patent by claiming it is a "linked list" patent > diminishes the conversation around patents._

The title of the patent is "Linked List". How is that an exaggeration?

> _If Subaru were issued a patent for a new method of fuel injection, would it > be appropriate to claim that they were issued a patent for the internal > combustion engine?_

I think you misunderstand my point. I did not claim that this person patented linked lists. I claimed this person patented a trivial enhancement to a conventional linked list, and did not provide any implementation detail (which is really what makes it trivial).

On the subject of implementation, I do not see a data structure description as an implementation, any more than I see an algorithm as an implementation. Being an electrical engineer I am biased towards thinking of implementation as an actual, functional system (not necessarily hardware). I know there are many patents where this definition of implementation doesn't hold, but that is why I am uncomfortable with software and business method patents in general, and think chemical and drug patents should be a special category.

<comment><USER5> > The title of the patent is "Linked List". How is that an exaggeration?

Now you are being disingenuous. The title has no legal significance. The only thing that has legal significance is the list of claims, and the are to be read as a conjunction (A & B & C...)

<comment><USER6> I don't think he ever claimed Linked Lists were patented. The title of the post is "Patent #7028023: Linked List". That's entirely factual based on the number and title of a patent.

At no point in his comments do I see him say "A linked list has been patented" or something similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I posted it on <http://askpatents.com> if you'd like to list prior art. [http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/738/prior-art- for...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/738/prior-art-for-linked- list)

Even an issued patent can still be invalidated. [http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/587/if-a- patent-h...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/587/if-a-patent-has- been-issued-can-it-still-be-invalidated-by-prior-art)

<comment><USER8> Multiple internal storage linked lists should be a prime example. I was using them on my 1995 racing game [1], where each car was contained in a global list of cars (for game logic and rendering), a list of cars for each sector of the track (for driving AI), and a list of cars for each map tile (for collisions).

Not sure if this is formally valid prior art, as each list a car is part of can be considered different lists (i.e. different set of members), not different sequences on the same set.

Frankly, I'd rather see this abomination be dismissed on the grounds of being obvious.

[1] [https://github.com/TheJare/SpeedHasteSrc/blob/master/game/th...](https://github.com/TheJare/SpeedHasteSrc/blob/master/game/things.h)

<comment><USER9> You would need to have been storing cdrs as well as cars for it to be considered valid prior art.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am stunned. Seriously, seriously stunned.

I've complained about patents once before, and I think this sort of patent is a perfect example of something that wouldn't be worth a single day of patent protection. It's a colossal over-payment. Does it really make sense for our society to "pay" 20 years of protection for an idea that is so trivial to most of the practitioners in the art?

It's like a street magician selling the secret to their cup and ball routine for $100,000. It's not a mystery, and it isn't worth the price. But for some reason, the USPTO reasons, "well, I haven't seen _your_ cup and ball routine before, so here's the check." They have far too low a standard, and we are paying far too high a price for the vast majority of patents. We can't keep doling out decades of protection for such common-place "inventions".

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4153732>

...

</comment><comment><USER11> This guy is amazing... he invented everything.. from air purifiers and supplementary bicycle handlebars, shoe tongue securing devices to linked lists (as early as 2002!!!) </sarcasm>

Patent Troll!

<comment><USER12> The only sorts of patents that should be granted are ones where you fire giant snowballs into the desert in order to irrigate it.

[http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=...](http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=GB&NR=1047735&KC=&locale=en_ep&FT=E)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Somewhat like a Skiplist, which is introduced in a 1990 paper: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_list>

I'm certain that at least one older algorithms text I own mentions skiplists, and there is no doubt much other prior art here, seems like the kind of thing that might find its way into kernel scheduling queues.

</comment><comment><USER12> By the same author:

"A method includes addressing, through a command generated by an application executing on a computing platform, one or more device(s) in storage communication with the computing platform based on an appropriate communication link. The method also includes accessing, based on the addressing, a physical register of the one or more device(s) through an appropriate interface therein. Further, the method includes obtaining statistical information associated with a performance of the one or more device(s) at the computing platform through the access of the physical register."

<http://www.google.com/patents/US20120144069>

<comment><USER14> How do you get a patent regarding "A method includes addressing, through a command generated by an application [...] based on an appropriate communication link" to be issued?

All I read was "This patent regards using a software-controlled computer to communicate with another computer in an arbitrary manner which can allow for data statistics and performance tracking. Oh, wait, that's not specific... Hmm... Oh wait! Yes, _and_ you have to get the data from a register."

<comment><USER15> "How do you get a patent ..."

The only way I can make sense of these ridiculous patents is if the patent examiners are under pressure to grant patents as part of their yearly performance metrics.

<comment><USER5> Patent examiners actually take pride in their high rejection ratio.

<comment><USER15> And yet the environment in which they work encourages more granted patents, as the new patent examination facilities being promoted by the administration imply (to me). Obama's/admin's stated reasons are to grant more patents faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Previous discussion

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873795>

</comment><comment><USER17> Hey, if you have solid prior art, post it to patents.stackexchange.com

Someone has already started:

[http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/738/prior-art- for...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/738/prior-art-for-linked- list-secondary-and-tertiary-traversal)

</comment><comment><USER18> So this is a linked list that's ordered in two different ways? If I create a third pointer to reorganize the same data in a third way, can I patent that on top?

<comment><USER19> Nope, Claim 2 is for a tertiary pointer as well. Your attempt to patent a triply-sequenced linked-list would be rejected as insufficiently innovative. Unlike the patent in question. _cough_

<comment><USER18> Damn, guess I have to step it up one more level and put a fourth pointer on there...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am a strong supporter of the patent system, and in general an advocate for software patents. This, however, is a likely example of an error. We accept a certain error rate in any process, and if the USPTO is expected to be infallible, then fees would skyrocket and people would complain that patents cost a million dollars. Anyone who tried to enforce this patent would more likely than not have it invalidated in court or on re-exam. Apparently the assignee (LSI Logic, hardly a 'troll') has chosen not to enforce this patent on Google and Microsoft because it is so weak. So before we grab the pitch forks, remember that the "system" as a whole has worked here, even if the PTO let one through. The tech world has not come crumbling down, Google was not shut down, and everybody who has ever modified a linked list has not been sued out of oblivion. If you have a much better method, I'm genuinely interested to hear it.

<comment><USER21> It doesn't matter. The non-zero probability of having to defend against this turd patent is real. Maybe the "owner" of the patent is reasonable and decides not to enforce it, maybe not. Maybe they sell it later and it is enforced. There is still a nonzero cost to this patent. The greater problem is companies see the PTO is willing to let shit like this through and therefore patent everything in sight. The "system as a whole" failed utterly here.

<comment><USER22> The closest solution for this is the SHIELD act. Write your elected officials and rally support!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So, unless it s open source software, how would they know who implements their patented list?

<comment><USER24> There are many companies who make a living by finding software patent infringement for their clients, sometimes through analyzing decompiled source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Java LinkedList: [http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/LinkedLis...](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/LinkedList.html)

Since J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998)

<comment><USER26> I believe linked lists are _much_ older than that though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I believe that doublely linked lists are described by Knuth in the Art of Computer Programming volume (something). My recollection is that it may have been in a problem or note. They are definitely used in UNIX for the run queue where rapid traversal was necessary. I recall them from an internals course I took at UNIX expo back in the mid '80's.

Additional pointers are trivially implied so I don't think that this patent should not stand.

What a mess!

</comment><comment><USER28> This guy has to have some massive balls to do this.

<comment><USER29> Why? He has nothing to lose. If it's rejected, it's rejected. But if it's accepted.. well you have something going now don't you?

As long as there's a legal way you can exploit something, someone will do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I am a former employee of LSI, and I actually had a chance to participate in a meeting with one of the patent lawyers at the company. This patent was specifically talked about in that meeting.

1) LSI is not a patent troll. They generate a small portion of their revenue through patents, but most of that is through its purchase of Agere (cell phone tech patents).

2) The patent in-question is near impossible to prove that it is being used by anyone unless the code is available to look at. And even then would require going over their code to find the issue. Most lawyers don't want to put in that much work to find a violation, they would rather have more broad patents to litigate or monazite with.

3) As there is a good chance that there is prior art to this patent, it probably won't be used by LSI. Worst-case is LSI hits financial troubles and sells the patent to a troll that tries to use it.

<comment><USER31> In my opinion, it should be obvious to anyone skilled in the art that this patent should not have been issued and those who filed it and approved it have participated in a fraud against the US legal system.

<comment><USER30> Sadly, that's not how the patent system is setup in the US. It rewards companies who try to file as many patents as possible and see if they can get those patents granted. It falls on the USPTO to validate and grant those patents.

As the USPTO is underfunded and understaffed, a lot of possibly invalid patents are granted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think we need to coin a new acronym: Yet Another Bogus Patent.

</comment><comment><USER33> Isn't this basically what e.g. MySQL secondary indexes are?

</comment><comment><USER34> It's a troll patent. Is it owned by a patent troll?

</comment><comment><USER35> Anyone know the cost of getting a patent like this?

<comment><USER36> It varies based on claims and size of the filing entity. There's a fee list here:

<http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee100512.htm>

Of course those are just the filing fees, most filers will file using patent attorneys which bring the ~$500-ish dollar cost up to $5k-10k per application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The examinators should probably be fired.

<comment><USER38> Examiners and the filers should be exiled to Zimbabwe with one day of water and bread crumbs.

<comment><USER37> What makes you think there is no food in Zimbabwe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wow what a load.

</comment><comment><USER40> Awesome</comment>


Confessions of a Long-Distance sailor   - <AUTHOR> http://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html <comment><USER2> For those who don't follow proggit, here is the context:

 _Programming thought experiment: stuck in a room with a PC without an OS_

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9x15g/programmi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9x15g/programming_thought_experiment_stuck_in_a_room/c0ev6lj)

 _I am a little difficult to describe ..._

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9xgnd/iama_little_diff...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9xgnd/iama_little_difficult_to_describe_designed_part/)

(redditor _lutusp_ is Paul Lutus, author of the linked book, former NASA engineer who worked on Viking Mars mission / Space Shuttle and creator of the Apple Writer, hacker extraordinaire)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lutus>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer>

<comment><USER3> He also wrote GraForth (an implementation of Forth with animation and sound for 1Mhz Apple ][+), one of the most amazing pieces of software I've ever seen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As I imagine many readers are in Silicon Valley, I'd point out that the San Francisco Bay is one of the best places to sail on earth. Beautiful scenery, 20+ knots of breeze every summer day (scary at first, awesome once you get used to it...), and endless possibilities from tiny dinghies to 50+ foot racing sleds. And racing sailboats is a tremendously fun, inexpensive (unless you own a boat), social, and high-adrenaline activity.

Learn the basics at one of the many Bay Area sailing clubs or schools and go out and try it. There's always demand for crew, and the most important qualities of a new crew member are being ready to take direction, in reasonable shape, and out to have fun. Expertise is a double-edged sword for new crew members, don't think you need it to get started -- you don't.

I've been racing on the SF Bay since 2000 and am totally addicted (raced today, as it happens). Forget what you think about sailing -- it's for old rich people; it's boring; I need to have grown up sailing or be some kind of expert -- and go out and try it.

</comment><comment><USER5> If anyone is in either the Bay Area or in New York, there are two community sailing co-ops that I highly recommend. I was in each city my past two summers and joined both and had a great time sailing.

In Berkeley, there's the Cal Sailing Club <http://www.cal-sailing.org/> with sailboats and windsurf boards. All for $60 for three months plus a few hours of contributed work to the club. They have cookouts and open houses and free sailing lessons from members. Really a great group of people.

In New York, look into the Sebago Canoe Club out in Brooklyn on Jamaica Bay. <http://www.sebagocanoeclub.org/> They're something like $200 a year plus a few hours of contributed work. Everyone there is super friendly and have kayaking and canoeing as well and free lessons.

Definitely the cheapest way to learn how to sail if you've never done it before, as most yacht or sailing clubs are much much more expensive and/or require you to own your own boat.

</comment><comment><USER6> I went sailing for the 2nd time today. It was only circles around a lake but I learned how to harness the awesome power of the outdoors. It is an awesome experience. Recommended for all.

<comment><USER7> My dad is an avid sailor, with a lake-sailing boat in the backyard (Flying Scot) who invites me to multi-day trips on the North Carolina coast on a cruiser he rents. This means I get to sail without ever really having to take care / pay for the boat.

There are three experiences on a sea-going sailboat that I particularly like:

a) Not quite being in control. You can set your sails to carry you any which way, but the wind and seas will only allow so much. You have to cooperate, but you do have quite a bit more control than a layperson might think.

b) Being "alone". Sailing on the open seas (or even within a particularly big bay or sound) means all you can see around you is water. Even if you're sailing with a crew, the disconnect from the outer world feels even more intense than going camping or some other disconnection from civilization.

c) Having to stick through foul weather. The first time you find yourself 5 hours from shore when it's raining and the seas are rough (not rough enough for small craft advisory, though) you realize there is no possible way to bypass those 5 hours; you just have to sail through it. The things that normally bother you just do not matter when you are completely drenched and trying to keep the waves from bashing you off course enough to lose the wind and get forced into an unplanned tack/jibe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I cannot recommend 'The Long Way' by Bernard Moitessier & 'The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst' highly enough. Both books cover how 2 contestants in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race could have won but did not, for rather interesting/different reasons.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Times_Golden_Globe_Race>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Moitessier>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst>

<comment><USER9> I saw "Deep Water" earlier this year. While I sympathize with the stresses that drove him in that direction, I honestly can't understand why Crowhurst ultimately did what he did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a member of a sailing co-op here in Minneapolis, great people and everyone is your teacher. We just pulled the boats off the water a few weeks back (and were already sweeping snow off the boats, dontchaknow). Just tested for skipper status before the season closed out.

Don't know if it's everyone's cup of tea, but definitely worth trying. If there are any HN'ers in Minneapolis/St Paul, happy to take people out for a try next Spring ;)

<comment><USER10> We sail on little Lake Harriet. The community is really active there, and from what I'm told it's a little more interesting than Calhoun as the winds are much more variable. That's due to all the obstructions and variation around the lake. The band shell in particular creates a deadspot or sweetspot on some days.

I joined the Twin Cities Sailing Club in August, I'm a newb ;), know just enough to be dangerous:

<http://tcsailing.com/tcsc/>

The people in this club are seriously cool people, a great group. Everyone is very generous in terms of teaching less experienced sailors, I've seen nothing but generosity when it comes to tiller time.

I think we have about a dozen boats or so, a mix of scows and daysailers. There are club days twice a week where you can crew up with a skipper and hit the lake. Once you pass your skipper tests, you can take the boats out anytime you please. Annual dues are $200 or so I think.

Oh and we are having our annual banquet November 7th:

<http://www.socializr.com/event/830239512/1867039201>

If you are not quite ready for putting down $200 and just want to try things out, definitely hit me up in May and I'd be more than happy to take you out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remind those interested in sailing about this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=809060>

</comment><comment><USER12> _The Apple Computer company, no longer in a garage, heard about my program and asked to see it. I added some things to it, made it presentable and stuffed it into a big manila envelope. As I rode my bike to the post office I thought, Who knows, maybe they'll like my program. It might be worth hundreds of dollars._

That doesn't even sound like the same field. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Retired at 35 and sailed around the world? this guy is my hero!

Well worth the paperback I should think. Another similar book I've read is Dove by Robin Lee Graham which is well worth checking out if you're into sailing. Things like this really make you re-evaluate your goals/path in life.</comment>


Can someone :help me? - <AUTHOR> http://ajh17.github.io/2014/05/25/can-someone-help-me/index.html <comment><USER2> If you're curious, Emacs does all this—and more—with various C-h commands. If you want to see a full list of these, start with

        C-h ?

Here are my favorites:

If you want to see a specific keybinding, like checking what C-w is bound to:

        C-h k C-w

If you want to see the documentation for a function:

        C-h f function-name

If you want to see details about your current mode:

        C-h m

This is incredibly useful because it lists all the mode-specific keybindings. That's how I learn how to use new modes!

If you want to see or interact with a variable:

        C-h v

If you want to see _something_ where you remember just part of the name:

        C-h a *regexp*

(a stands for "apropos")

If you want to see the incredibly detailed manual for Emacs or all of the info manuals on your computer:

        C-h r
        C-h i

If you want to see info about your input mode (how do I type ℕ in TeX-input- mode?):

        C-h I

Actually, for that one, I have another handy trick: copy and paste an ℕ into your buffer, go over it and use

        C-u C-x =

which brings up detailed information about the given character... including how to type it in your current input mode (if applicable). This also includes useful info like its Unicode designation and category.

I've found all of these tricks exceptionally helpful when learning more about Emacs. They also help me overcome my fear of memorization: its so easy to look stuff up, I don't have to bother. Then, if I use something enough, I remember it without especially effort. It's like a cache in my mind.

<comment><USER3> Better still, if you want to execute a command and if you approximately know what it could be called as, you get list of potential commands in an alternative buffer, by Alt-x, and then start typing part of the command. This I feel is great to explore commands as you need them, before binding new keys to those commands.

Without getting into emacs vs vim war, the author would be impressed in a bigger way once the emacs documentation is explored!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sure I would be. I actually like emacs very much, and used to use it in my uni days. These days though, I like the modal way of editing more.

I think emacs' documentation does come close but I still think Vim's help is much more easy to use and to search for. For example, a new user coming to emacs can't search for help on C-x C-f by invoking C-h C-x C-f

<comment><USER4> > For example, a new user coming to emacs can't search for help on C-x C-f by > invoking C-h C-x C-f

That's true. It's C-h _k_ C-x C-f. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, thanks. Sort of hard to type it though. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think if the idea is to help newcomers with Vim, this is the wrong approach. Nobody tries to learn something new by checking out what a random key does, using :help X. When I was trying to learn Vim, the most useful info was actually search results for "how to do X with Vim", because everybody knows A) another editor, probably B) what they want to achieve. After that you slowly discover features one after the other, which can only happen by using the editor a lot. It's good to have a "help X" around, but most of the time, if you're starting out, you don't know that X is what you need in the first place.

People learning git don't start with typing "git rebase --help" just to see what it does. You learn to add, commit, push, (probably from a tutorial) and then go from there.

<comment><USER6> Hence vimtutor. The "going from there", in git, _does_ consist in part of "git rebase --help" or "man git-rebase", which are roughly equivalent to :help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > No other software product that I've ever come across or used has had a > better documentation.

Vim requires so much documentation just to be usable. There is no GUI to hint at how to do anything. No toolbars, no application menus, no context menus or buttons. Vim's documentation is probably somewhat responsible for its popularity. I've never not found something I needed in Vim's documentation.

<comment><USER8> Which also means no GUI to get in the way.

I'm not saying there isn't a time and a place for that, but after your 2nd or 3rd decade of using a tool, sometimes you just want to see the text you're working on.

<comment><USER9> You may have hit on my fundamental frustration with Unix command line. Every tool is designed around the basic assumption that the user has a couple of decades of experience and wants the tool to get out out of the way and let them work. That's great for veterans, but actively hostile to newbies.

You'd think there could be some sort of middle ground.

<comment><USER10> I suppose one of the advantages of a GUI is that it shows you what options are available; it's kind of inherently "explorable".

There's probably a few factors that confound this. First, a GUI for something as abstract and powerful as VI is difficult to create, and still keep usable. The only way I can really imagine it is a kind of tutorial overlay which presents common options on the screen. Similar problem for the shell, I guess, there are just too many things you can / want to do in there to distill into a GUI.

Second, I suspect that these tools come from an age where people had different expectations, and with those, different ways of looking for help. I guess most *nix people are aware of man-pages, and are pretty efficient at reading it's syntax. Despite it's lack of GUI, VIM tries pretty hard to point you to the help (e.g. on my installation, the help commands are always shown when you start it - I guess this is by default).

<comment><USER11> > it's kind of inherently "explorable"

The CLI version of this is using two "things" at the same time, one thing in the CLI and another thing in some form of docs or tutorial or google result or whatever. Where "thing" equals window, monitor, screen/tmux, console tab, whatever. (edited to add, I've never learned a programming language any other way, in the olden days we used ink on paper books as the "other screen")

> different ways of looking for help

Windows / GUI way is one huge app that does absolutely everything and includes the entire world within it including all documentation and tutorials and its a failure to ever need anything outside that app, no matter if its a tool or a doc. This doesn't scale very well.

Unix / CLI way is many tools each perfect at one task, and the perfect tool for docs might be some tutorial on the net or perhaps a manpage, and that is philosophically the way it should be. Feature not bug. This scales pretty well.

GUI way is a swiss army knife. CLI way is a Wiha made in Germany of chromed hardened tool steel posidriv shape size #1 50mm blade length, which costs as much as a generic Chinese swiss army knife, but is a world class screwdriver.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, although the "perfect tool at one task" becomes slightly complex when we consider something like vim. Sure, I consider it to be very good at the "one task" of text editing, but that's such a broad subject, with so many sub tasks that the argument tends to break down.

Regarding help and explorability, I mean something a bit more than this. Take man pages for example; if I know what command I want to know more about, it's great. Without that knowledge, it's much harder to get information. In a weird GUI equivalent, you could click on an "administration" screen, and see the top 20 functionalities under that category (say, "you might be looking for: chmod, last, etc). Kind of a hierarchical breakdown of common functionality. Not only is this situation of zero knowledge more prevalent in today's non-expert PC user world, but it's also the way we've been "brought up" in the GUI world.

<comment><USER11> I believe the command you're looking for is "apropos". In the modern era everyone just uses google to answer questions like that anyway, GUI or CLI.

vlm@dev:~$ apropos permissions

access (2) - check real user's permissions for a file

chmod (2) - change permissions of a file

eaccess (3) - check effective user's permissions for a file

euidaccess (3) - check effective user's permissions for a file

faccessat (2) - check user's permissions of a file relative to a directory file descriptor

fchmod (2) - change permissions of a file

fchmodat (2) - change permissions of a file relative to a directory file descriptor

ioperm (2) - set port input/output permissions

WWW::RobotRules (3pm) - database of robots.txt-derived permissions

vlm@dev:~$

<comment> qu4z-2 Alternatively

        man -k permissions

works for me even on some systems that don't have the apropos command.

<comment><USER8> apropos is often an alias, shell function, or script wrapper around 'man -k'.

Actually, on my Debian system, it's a symlink to whatis(1).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The documentation is so good, you need a beautifully crafted website with english sentences, standard typography / web styles, and acommpanying visual diagrams...simply to learn how to use the "help" feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I wrote this partly for a friend who wants to give Vim a try. I noticed if I told him to read the help on a topic, he would just google the question himself (maybe he doesn't like the terminal interface to read the help doc).

I've also noticed some people will manually go search a plugin on Github just to read the plugin's doc folder, when the same help doc is available right inside vim!

So I thought I would help explain why Vim's help is so awesome that people should use it more and using it more means that you learn more things about vim.

But I appreciate that you like my website, thanks! :)

<comment><USER13> The tricky thing about vim help, to me, is that it feels nearly impossible to navigate until you're already pretty comfortable with moving around in Vim. Making all of the most basic things so different from the WYSIWYG editors most people know generates a huge mental load at first, just trying to get the most basic things done.

When I started using Vim, I found for a while that I couldn't stand writing code with it for more than an hour or so, because it was too difficult to think about what the code is doing and how to use the Vim commands to actually edit the text at the same time. I think it took me several months of poking around and training myself in basic movement commands to get to where I could actually work in it effectively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any one know how do I search for a shortcut in different modes?

For example, 'ctrl-r' in normal mode means redo, in insert mode means paste from register. However ':h ctrl-r' only shows the help for normal mode.

<comment><AUTHOR> I linked that help topic in the article.

`:h help-context` tells you what you need to append for each mode. So for ctrl-r in insert mode would be: `:h i_Ctrl-r`

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does no one check their page layout on anything but 4k resolution any more? Here's what the page looks like on one of my 1280x1024 screens: [http://i.imgur.com/w6WXYF6.png](http://i.imgur.com/w6WXYF6.png)

Since the screen is physically on my left, it's very annoying to try to read the text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, thanks for that, I'll see what I can do. I don't have a 4k monitor but I do have a retina MBP. I tested it on mobile and the retina MBP but I don't have access to a lower resolution computer (hehe).

<comment><USER16> Just change the size of your window.

<comment><USER17> Or remove it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I use vim (after years of being a happy emacs user — switched due to RSI), but I've never liked its help system. Compared to emacs, it's incredibly hard to navigate and it just doesn't have anything as powerful as C-h k (what does this key do?).

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you feel that Vim's help in that area is lacking?

I think searching for a key binding is pretty straightforward with `:h {key}`. I like how it's short and simple they are most of the time too so you can read and get back to whatever you were doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Apropos help in emacs is nice. For similar in vim type :help blah<ctrl-d>

</comment><comment><USER20> Honestly the entire time I was under the impression that the author is being sarcastic.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can someone explain to me why people still use Vim and Emacs? Is it more efficient than GUIs like Sublime Text?

I only ever use Vim for quick edits and fail to see how one can be more effective in it when you can't click and highlight text.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't convince you that Vim or Emacs is more convenient than Sublime Text. You will have to find that out on your own.

And yes, you can highlight text, using Visual mode or the mouse.</comment></comment>


Caffeinated peanut butter is here - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/caffeinated-peanut-butter-is-here-draws-ire-of-charles-schumer/ <comment><AUTHOR> For all the coders and closers, _" Two tablespoons of it offers the same dose of caffeine as almost two cups of coffee, the company boasts."_</comment>


Show HN: Firefox add on which logs YouTube urls so you can download them later - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/inondle/ydltracker/ <comment><USER2> OT: I'm still searching for a tool/scriptlet to load my whole history off youtube. The API commands allow only the last n (I think it where 50) entries to fetch, and the interface of youtube is even worse.

<comment><USER3> Write a JS snippet that will press the "Load more" button every 2s on the web interface. Let it run for a lot of time, on Chrome DevTools, then scrape the page with Javascript. Seems relatively easy.

<comment><USER2> I did something like this with firefox, but after a while firefox was using so much RAM, it took him 10-20 sec. for a single request - I gathered ~40000 history entries with this technique. Perhaps Chrome DevTools will do a better job - I'll try.

<comment><USER3> Ok, you have too many history entries. That will be a problem everywhere. Perhaps removing CSS, media and images from the DOM will reduce memory consumption and get your farther?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, how do I install it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey I switched it from unlisted to listed. It's still being reviewed but here is a link to the listing.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ydl- tracker/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ydl-tracker/)</comment></comment>


Cache Eviction: When Are Randomized Algorithms Better Than LRU? - <AUTHOR> http://danluu.com/2choices-eviction

<comment><USER2> Nice article, and wonderful graphs!

I'm unfamiliar with DineroIV, but it might be interesting to see how the companion line prefetcher affects your results for L3. On most current systems[1], the system always fetches two 64B cachelines for each request to memory --- the line requested, and the adjacent line in the same 128B block.

The usefulness of this obviously depends on the workload, and I don't know how the SPEC CPU tests would be affected. But I suspect it might improve the relative performance of the LRU strategy on those where the second cacheline isn't ever used. Maybe the same would be true for the other prefetchers?

[1] Coincidentally, Intel just recently documented the appropriate MSR's for turning on and off the various hardware prefetchers at runtime: [https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/disclosure-of- hw-p...](https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/disclosure-of-hw- prefetcher-control-on-some-intel-processors)

</comment><comment><USER3> In my experience maintaining LRU queue has significant overhead. Random (hash based) displacement has almost zero overhead.

<comment><USER4> A fully-associative LRU cache can have significant overhead, yes. An 8-way set-associative LRU cache, not so much.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sodium_compat, a Pure PHP implementation of libsodium - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/paragonie/sodium_compat <comment><USER2> Why? I thought the entire point of libsodium was to provide an expert implementation of cryptographic primitives with a simple API. In particular it is designed to be resistant to timing attacks, at least this property seems to be much harder to guarantee with PHP.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some background reading for deeply interested parties:

[https://www.sitepoint.com/what-would-you-pay-to- make-27-of-t...](https://www.sitepoint.com/what-would-you-pay-to-make-27-of- the-web-more-secure/)

[https://paragonie.com/blog/2017/01/let-s-make-2017-year- simp...](https://paragonie.com/blog/2017/01/let-s-make-2017-year-simply- secure-php-cryptography)

The short answer is "compatibility, and so we can get Ed25519-signed updates into e.g. WordPress".

Important to note: If you have the libsodium PHP extension installed, then ParagonIE_Sodium_Compat::foo() will proxy to \Sodium\foo() instead of using our implementation.

Installing the PHP extension gets you timing-safe guarantees AND better performance. I hope that's enough of a bargaining chip to get the extension installed everywhere (and to drive the initiative to make libsodium a core extension in PHP 7.2). [https://externals.io/thread/626](https://externals.io/thread/626)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Curve25519 in pure PHP? Yikes. Have you done any measurements to verify that the implementation is constant time?

[https://github.com/paragonie/sodium_compat/tree/master/src/C...](https://github.com/paragonie/sodium_compat/tree/master/src/Core/Curve25519)

<comment><USER4> Yikes indeed. Implementing crypto primitives in an interpreted language is full of hazards for side channel attacks - being constant time is just the first step. Cache behavior, branch predictor attacks, etc are also important. And all of the above applies to native code crypto too. When you add an interpreter on top, a ton of new side channels are introduced.

The author (see links elsewhere ITT) seems pretty knowledgeable about basic side channels but I'm still extremely wary about this. The motivation for this project seems to be "not every PHP programmer can install native libs on their $5 hosting platform", which IMO is a pretty poor justification for a new crypto library. Feel free to disagree on this.

Good thing is that this library will use native libsodium if available, so hopefully the impact of side channels in this isn't that great.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Implementing crypto primitives in an interpreted language is full of hazards > for side channel attacks - being constant time is just the first step. Cache > behavior, branch predictor attacks, etc are also important. And all of the > above applies to native code crypto too. When you add an interpreter on top, > a ton of new side channels are introduced.

These are the sort of things I'm hoping can be addressed in the planned third- party audit: [https://github.com/paragonie/sodium_compat/issues/8](https://github.com/paragonie/sodium_compat/issues/8)

If it turns out that this project is helplessly insecure and there's no way to make it reasonably secure, I'm never tagging v1.0.0. Dead stop.

> The motivation for this project seems to be "not every PHP programmer can > install native libs on their $5 hosting platform", which IMO is a pretty > poor justification for a new crypto library. Feel free to disagree on this.

I'm specifically more concerned with the second-order effect of what you've described; namely, PHP projects can't require ext/libsodium because they can't expect everyone to easily install it.

I want to get everyone off mcrypt, unauthenticated AES-CBC, RSA encryption with PKCS1v1.5 padding, etc. I'd like to get Ed25519 signature verification built into automatic updates throughout the entire ecosystem. Sodium_compat was the only reasonable strategy to accomplish these goals, given real-world constraints.

> Good thing is that this library will use native libsodium if available, so > hopefully the impact of side channels in this isn't that great.

I'm hoping there aren't any, but if there are, that installing the PHP extension mitigates them entirely. It'll make it easier to convince $5 hosting platforms to install the extension. :)

<comment><USER4> You seem to have taken a "lesser of two evils" approach and that's probably a good idea. Side channels are not as bad as completely broken crypto, as long as the critical infrastructure (api.wordpress.com, etc) is good. If someone's private wordpress hosting gets knocked it's not a big deal but if the private keys of wordpress.com leaks through side channels it spells trouble for everyone.

In the ideal world, this project wouldn't need to exists but it's not the world we live in.

> I'm specifically more concerned with the second-order effect of what you've > described; namely, PHP projects can't require ext/libsodium because they > can't expect everyone to easily install it.

This is just a sad state of affairs.

> If it turns out that this project is helplessly insecure and there's no way > to make it reasonably secure, I'm never tagging v1.0.0. Dead stop.

This is straight and honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This implementation will hopefully also make it in WordPress core for signed updates: [https://ma.ttias.be/wordpress-get-secure-cryptographic- updat...](https://ma.ttias.be/wordpress-get-secure-cryptographic-updates/)

<comment><USER6> Here's the ticket: [https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39309](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39309)

There's a bunch of still to overcome still, but I'm hopeful!</comment></comment>


This Is Your Brain on Adventure (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.outsideonline.com/1896581/your-brain-adventure <comment><USER2> Well that's disappointing. I hoped this was about fMRI for folks playing Adventure:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_%281979_video_game%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_%281979_video_game%29)

<comment><USER3> I thought exactly the same thing, but I was expecting this one:

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

To me that would have been a million times more interesting than this article.

<comment><USER4> And we wonder why there's an obesity epidemic!</comment></comment></comment>


Please Don't Show Us Another "Typical Family Earning $270,000 a Year" - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/redirect/business/2017/12/why-are-sample-families-in-tax-plan-analyses-so-rich.html <comment><USER5> "Rafa Nadal and I have an average of 5 French Open titles." That is a quote I'm going to have to remember. Should come in handy often.

<comment><USER6> "Bill Gates walks into a bar and the average net worth of everyone there goes up $1M"

<comment><USER7> How big is this bar? Time bring out the quadratic equation.

If the average net worth of a US citizen is $100,000 (it's less, but I'll go with that), and Gates has a net worth of $90 billion, and the average net worth of those people goes up $1M:

      average worth = aw = 100000
      n people
      total worth = aw * n
      Bill Gates comes in:
      total worth' = aw * n + 90000000000
      aw' = (aw * n + 90000000000)/(n+1)
      difference = aw' - <USER3>
            = (aw * n + 90000000000)/(n+1) - aw * n = 1000000
            = (100000 * n + 90000000000)/(n+1) - (100000 * n) = 1000000
         => n ≈ 944 people in the bar

[https://www.thebalance.com/american-net-worth-by-state- metro...](https://www.thebalance.com/american-net-worth-by-state- metropolitan-4135839) says the average net worth is $68,828 in 2011, which implies about 1,136 people in the bar.

Big bar.

If they were millionaires already, then only 300 people are needed. If they were billionaires, only about 30.

<comment><USER8>
        > difference = aw' - <USER3>
        >    = (aw * n + 90000000000)/(n+1) - aw * n = 1000000

Somehow aw turned into aw * n there, which sent your calculations wildly off. You want:

        n * aw + 90 * 10^9 = (n + 1) * (aw + 10^6)
        n * aw + 90 * 10^9 = n * aw + n * 10^6 + aw + 10^6
        90 * 10^9 - (10^6 + aw) = n * 10^6
        n = 89999 - aw / 10^6

i.e., almost 90000 people, no matter how wealthy the population of the bar is.

<comment><USER9> > no matter how wealthy the population of the bar is.

That doesn't sound right. What if the population of the bar is as wealthy as Gates? The average net worth should change if you add another value equals to all the previous ones. Am I reading something wrong?

<comment><USER8> _What if the population of the bar is as wealthy as Gates?_

My point is that you can't find 90000 people who are as wealthy as Gates. In fact, you can't find 90000 people whose average wealth comes anywhere close to Gates -- even the Forbes 400 average out at a paltry $6.7B, and you'd need to stock the bar with 83300 people with that level of wealth before Gates would fail to raise the average wealth by $1M.

I think the average wealth among the top 90000 people is around $100M, so you'd need to have around 89900 of them... plus or minus a few thousand depending on how the stock market is doing on any particular day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem is that the people putting together these scenarios almost exclusively live on the coasts, where $270k/year can be average more often.

But just watch a TV show like House Hunters, and see how many people in America are struggling to buy a house that costs about the same as what people on the coasts spend on a fancy new car. There's your "average" person. There was one episode a few years ago where a guy in Atlanta had a budget of $46,000. Yes, just $46k for a condo. It was small, but it was home.

It should also be of no surprise that the politicians view $270k as an "average" family. They're all completely out of touch. Remember back in the early 90's when Bill Clinton said that anyone making $200k/year was technically a millionaire, because there's no reason they couldn't save a million dollars in five years. Red or blue, they're both clueless.

<comment><USER11> How come so many people buy houses in the US, while most of us Germans rent? Even people considered of average income talk about their "condos" all the time.

I always think, how can they be average if they own a whole house?!

<comment><USER12> In the United States, paying your mortgage, taxes and insurance is often about the same price as paying rent (this varies with where you live of course). When you choose to put your money towards buying a house a portion of the money you pay each month goes towards paying off the principle of the loan, so you are "building equity". After 15 or 30 years you pay off the loan, then you only need to pay taxes, and insurance if you want. It makes retirement much easier if you own your own home. And in emergencies you can borrow money against your home or sell it to raise a lot of money.

You also have to pay for upkeep of your house, but an offset to that is that real estate can often increase in value over time. And the best thing is, it's _your_ house. Pride of ownership is a real thing, it's nice to be able to do what you want, have a garden (if you have any land which many houses do), paint it how you want, add an addition, upgrade the kitchen or bathroom.

People who do not make a lot of money, but have a steady income and good credit can get a mortgage for a house they can afford, with just 10-20% down payment. But the poorest or those who do not have good credit must still rent, and even that is hard because many landlords check credit histories and want a big deposit up front.

<comment><USER13> >it's nice to be able to do what you want, have a garden (if you have any land which many houses do), paint it how you want, add an addition, upgrade the kitchen or bathroom.

Let's toss in a YMMV on this since sometimes home ownership in the US is also coupled with very restrictive HOAs.

Overall, that's a great description of why home ownership in the US can be beneficial once you've reached a certain income or rental price point that it makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not convinced by the bit at the end arguing that profiling mainly rich families is right because that's where the money is. If you want to look at where the money is, charts breaking down the overall changes in revenue-- literally breaking down where the money is--are the right tool, and plenty of news outlets and think-tanks have been making those. (Like, I don't know, this: [https://cdn.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/DxNLXVIK9jjf6JdZlijXboCAnIA=...](https://cdn.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/DxNLXVIK9jjf6JdZlijXboCAnIA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9910265/CHIP_VS_TAX_CUTS.jpg) \-- also, interesting URL with the rescaling operations there.)

The point of looking at particular individuals and families is to translate it into impact on people's lives, and 1) a lot more lives are lived in those lower income ranges, so there's a greater multiplier to the impact there, and 2) the impact of a given dollar change in take-home pay is larger for someone less rich.

For an example of the second factor, like a lot of people in the US tech business, my life probably doesn't change that much if my take-home pay goes up or down $1K. If someone only has a couple K of discretionary income every year it's a bigger deal; if someone can barely make rent anywhere in their city or can't afford to fix the car they take to work when it has mechanical issues, it's crucial.

<comment><USER15> One of my bugaboos is people using the wrong metrics to try and describe problems.

In this case relative price level means nothing at all. It's all about job security, opportunity and margin. You comment about the difference of $1k is all about margin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This page has some good examples:

[https://taxfoundation.org/final-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act- taxpay...](https://taxfoundation.org/final-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-taxpayer- impacts/)

$30k income, single, no kids. $52k income, single, 2 kids. $75k income, single, no kids. $85k income, married, 2 kids. $165k income, married, 2 kids. ...

That's the kind of stuff people are looking for, right? The $165k entry is two earners - all of these are fairly realistic examples.

Those of you that think that something is missing from these examples - <USER4> do you think is missing? I mean, the low income earners even see a break. $30k income, single, no kids, and living in California goes from a federal tax bill of $2426 to $1970. (according to [http://taxplancalculator.com/](http://taxplancalculator.com/) )

<comment><USER17> Most everyone will get a break. There is a weird crunch for people making between $200K and $400K in a high tax state like CA or NY who will come out behind due to the loss of deduction on their property tax and state tax, and since they live in CA or NY, are probably barely middle class at those wages.

The bigger issue is that, for example, the Walton family _alone_ will get 5% of the 1.5 trillion dollar tax break. The Trump family will get a huge break too. It's unlikely that the Walton family or the Trump family will suddenly start making a ton of economic activity because of their windfalls, but in the meantime government revenue is down, which means they have to start cutting services.

So most of the tax breaks for the lower earners will be eaten up over the next few years in paying for things the government used to subsidize for them.

<comment><USER18> I live in NJ, another state where the $200k-$400k will be hurt. Believe me, that is _solidly_ middle class, even when a 1BR rents for $3k/month.

The real problem with these "tax breaks" is that the most significant breaks are highly specific and selective. This tax bill basically picks winners and losers. Worse still, the winners tend to be people with the kind of investments and lifestyle that Republican lawmakers have (e.g. the Corker kickback), and the losers tend to be professionals living in Democrat-leaning states (e.g. tech workers).

The relatively small breaks that the majority will receive are temporary, and represent a minefield of exceptions that can leave people with no break at all (e.g. the loss of exemptions). There is a reason Republicans are picking oddly specific examples of people the bill will benefit -- most people will not see much, which is not a very compelling story.

<comment><AUTHOR> _> I live in NJ, another state where the $200k-$400k will be hurt. Believe me, that is solidly middle class_

The median household in New Jersey in 2016 had an income of $76,212. (Source: [https://www.census.gov/data- tools/demo/saipe/saipe.html?s_ap...](https://www.census.gov/data- tools/demo/saipe/saipe.html?s_appName=saipe&map_yearSelector=2016&map_geoSelector=mhi_c&s_state=34&s_measures=mhi_snc&menu=grid_proxy))

In _the highest-income county_ in New Jersey, Hunterdon County, the median household in 2016 had an income of $113,336.

You may wish to adjust your definition of "solidly middle class" a bit.

<comment><USER18> I was going by what sort of lifestyle you can live with that income range. You can rent a nice apartment in a nice part of town and support a family on your salary. You could also go out to the suburbs and live in a largish house. You get one or two trips abroad with your kids each year.

We are not talking about country clubs, yachts, or first class airfare here. It is not the 1%. It is between working class and upper class. What else would you call it?

<comment><USER19> Statistically, quite rich.

<comment><USER18> I disagree. The 1% is "quite rich." The 200k-400k income band is not the 1%. Like I said, the things wealthy people can afford are still out of reach.

There is a group of people who are not living paycheck to paycheck but who still need to work full time. That group is called the middle class.

<comment><USER20> >So your definition of "solidly upper class" is the top 10% of earners? That's a pretty loose definition IMO.

You stated that above. I'd say your definition here is quite a bit more "loose."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Is the media hopelessly out of touch?

What _income group_ do these media outlets think their readers belong to? If anything this kind of reporting might show why "bottom half of earners in America" are turning towards stuff like Breitbart etc.

<comment><USER22> I'm sure Breitbart is blindly trumpeting the tax cut, just without the profiles/statistics showing what types of people it helps. There's a reason these outlets are showing "typical" families making $250k. That's how they can show that "typical" families benefit significantly.

Most news outlets also stand to benefit significantly because it is primarily a tax cut for businesses.

<comment><USER23> I think they mostly just haven't been covering it. Definitely not the policy details, a little bit of the horse-trading.

<comment><USER24> Taxes are complex enough that media outlets can't cover the details without having readers lose interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The conversation is repeatedly borked by differences in COL. Touting the national median income and then claiming someone earning $100k in SF (where the median income is ~$100k) is "out of touch" is frustrating.

<comment><USER26> It's interesting to think about how a progressive tax code is meant to tax those who can afford it the most, but it ignores COL differences so the taxes fall disproportionately on those in high COL locations.

<comment><USER27> High COL locations typically manage to offer higher salaries too, though.

<comment><USER26> Exactly. You get a higher salary, but everything costs more. And the government takes a larger percentage of your salary.

It's hard to nail down the magnitude of the effect, but it seems like a policy that basically subsidizes lower COL locations.

<comment><USER28> Salaries versus COL, and the impacts of the perception of both, are not (usually) linearly correlated, but which side of the line any given locality falls upon is hard to predict. Salaries in San Jose, for example, are significantly better relative to COL (in part because of the halo effect from the rest of the Bay Area) than they would be in Los Angeles, where cost-of- living is high but a commensurate lifting of salary has not been seen. But considering this as a general note of unfairness rings pretty hollow to me. It's a relative scale problem; my yearly net is going to be more actionable and more usable than that of someone in a low-COL area because _the work usually isn 't there to begin with_.

As an example, from the numbers I've seen whenever I've talked to companies out there, I would probably take home between 40% and 50% more money if I relocated to San Francisco from Boston; I'm very good at what I do and my set of skills is in high demand. I'd probably pay between 20 and 25% more in expenses, including taxes. The biggest increase would, of course, be housing costs--but I would have more disposable income that I could then (because that kind of money is buy-capital money--unlike, say, a tiny pacifying bribe to look the other way while the rich monumentally loot us) use to invest and reap consistent returns in a way that is _functionally unavailable_ to most people living in, say, the Lakes Region of Maine, where I grew up and where the average household income is about $41,000.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> A salient point from the article:

 _So when we look for examples to illustrate the tax code, it makes sense to use a bunch of pretty wealthy families, because the big pictures is that nobody else really has very much money._

<comment><USER30> This is a good point. If someone is going to highlight what a federal tax cut does, they have to go to people actually paying federal taxes. Most people in lower incomes brackets already pay near 0 in federal tax. This is why tax cuts do not really help those who need help the most. To help those who really need help we have to _spend_ money on things like healthcare, education, and jobs programs[1].

[1] As an aside, people rightfully rip on military spending waste a lot, but it is still a decently functioning jobs program.

<comment><USER31> On the other hand, a tax cut helps a husband and wife working 60 hour weeks each, who barely have time for each other, in order to pay for the mortgage, health insurance, and try and save for retirement, and pay over 60% of their money to the government (40% fed tax, 14% state tax, 10% sales tax).

<comment><USER32> If some family is taxed at those rates, they don't need a tax cuts because they are pulling a 7+ figure income.

For reference, I make close to $200k and my effective federal tax rate including FICA taxes was 16%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's like the family from "Home Alone". When you think about it, they're really rich.

<comment><USER34> even when I was young I questioned the cost of putting 15-20 people on an airplane, the cost of daily breakfast of 15-20 people, let alone the fact they they appear to be affluent and live in a small mansion. When I got older I began wondering what the parents did for a living, but I never investigated it enough to see if it was explained.

Glad to see i'm not the only one that questioned it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think this is often a dumb complaint and it shows itself in other contexts sometimes. There's a natural floor to income, it's $0. But there is no ceiling. So naturally if you want to give a sampling of scenarios covering most people, most examples will be high earners (even if there are fewer of those) because how many meaningfully different scenarios are there between $0 and $50k of income?

EDIT: Another corollary of this explains part of why income inequality increases over time. As markets become more global, the upside for successful enterprises goes up - there are a lot more potential customers. So today someone at the top of their field can have a much higher income than he could in the past, whereas the income floor at $0 is unchanging.

</comment><comment><USER36> Jealousy and greed is driving the opposition to the tax plan.

If you look closely, you'll see that most complaints aren't about not getting a tax break, because 99.99999% of people will get one.

No, the chief complaint is "the rich are getting more."

</comment><comment><USER37> The author makes a valid complaint about the examples these senators used to promote the tax bill but he doesn't further my understanding of the bill. In fact, what little he says about it seems wrong:

> All changes to deductions, for example, only affect people who itemize their > deductions (almost always high earners)—and within that group, only the > subset whose deductions topped the new, doubled standard deduction. And this > means that if your income is in the bottom half, your tax return won't > showcase many of the ways the law is changing.

Let's break it down:

> Most people who itemize are high earners.

From what I found[1], 1 in 3 tax filers itemize. Most deductions come from mortgage interest and state and local taxes. I pay a mortgage and a hefty NJ state income tax. Am I a high roller?

> The amount you pay in taxes will not change unless your itemized deductions > top the new standard deduction.

That's exactly wrong, right? If your itemized deductions top the new standard deduction then you will still itemize, so your deduction won't change. If you do not itemize (looking at you, non-high rollers) then your deduction will double. If your itemized deductions are lower than the new standard deduction (peasants like me), your deduction will increase to the new standard deduction.

Also, I can't tell if he's saying you won't pay less in taxes, or if he's saying "your tax return won't showcase many of the ways the law is changing". The latter is vague enough to be non-falsifiable. The former is just wrong because the tax rate is changing for every bracket but the lowest one.

This is a contrived example, but a single filer making $50k who took the standard deduction last year would have remained in the 3rd tax bracket (25%) without the bill. With the bill, he'll deduct an additional $6k, which drops him into the 2nd tax bracket, which is now 10% (down from 12% a year ago). That's a nice chunk of change for a deadbeat!

1\. [http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/who-itemizes- ded...](http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/who-itemizes-deductions)

</comment><comment><USER38> I've been seeing quite a few slate.com articles on the frontpage lately (the dockless cycle comes to mind). I hope this is not the new normal...

<comment><USER39> Can you expand on this for people who don't have an opinion on the site?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Complaining that rich benefit disproportionately from tax cuts while ignoring the negligible taxes paid by those under median income is politics as usual. It is the opposite side of the "fair share" argument when demanding more hand outs be paid by those with more money than the writer.

<comment><USER28> In a healthy, civic-conscious society, it is understood that those who _have_ help those who _don 't_ and that this is a moral and ethical good. What we are seeing now with the profound selfishness of the modern American civic system (in some social quarters on the left, in most social and economic quarters on the right) is a breakdown of that mutual understanding and spirit of civic duty. Which leads to those who have _incomprehensible amounts of money_ being defended by those with merely _a lot of money_ against those with _no money_ by characterizing the notion of ensuring a basic standard of living for those with _no money_ as something like "handouts" instead of the mutual cooperation to keep a working society that people, not just rich people, actually want to live in.

There is a statement about the need to get over oneself somewhere in there, but finding it is an exercise for the reader.

<comment><USER41> Something you didn't touch on is that there may be a different viewpoint on whether people are getting "handouts" based on assumed counterfactuals. Say one person makes $30K and another makes $5M. What is the "fair" amount of tax and who is getting a handout? The rich person may think "society provides people with $10K of support per capita, so if I pay more taxes than that, it's generous and if someone pays less, they're getting a handout". The person making $30K may reason that "if it wasn't for society catering to the privileged, _nobody_ would make millions, so nearly all the excess over the average income is a handout if not paid in taxes". It all depends on where you anchor your assumption of what is deserved.

<comment><USER42> Recall that for someone "making" $5M per year, the majority of income that high is inevitiably extractive and exploitative and comes from ownership and power, not the output of their actual work. One could argue if they deserve any of it beyond their actual real wages at a fairly evaluated rate, which might cap out at $1M in a democratic society. FDR proposed a 100% marginal tax rate on the highest earners, his opponents argued him down to something in the 90s, spawning the most productive period in US history.

<comment><USER41> I don't necessarily find it convincing that the benefit from living in society to an individual is capped, but on the other hand, I don't find it convincing that the benefit from some individual to society is capped _either_.

We may consider perhaps one can only truly earn $1M. But, what if someone has an idea that benefits a billion people to the value of a dollar each? You may not think, for instance, that Facebook in particular qualifies, but the point is, it seems to me _possible in principle_. Or, what if someone invents something that saves a million lives? You can't put a dollar amount on that, maybe, but surely it's worth more than $1M, because courts put that much value on just one life frequently.

All in all, the existing situation, where taxes are a percentage of what you make kind of makes sense to me. It is consistent with believing that living in society is a multiplier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This has been driving me nuts, I'm glad someone is writing about it. I don't think this is happening to show how much the tax cuts are giving back to people, I can't help but think that the reason only high earners are shown as examples is to paint this legislation as only benefiting high earners. If this is the case it has been broadly successful. Apparently half the country is buying into a narrative that their tax bills are going to go up, and I'm not sure where that idea is coming from. ( [https://www.monmouth.edu/polling- institute/reports/MonmouthP...](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling- institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_US_121817/) )

If the low income earners were included two things would be clear. 1) Many low income earners don't pay federal income taxes at all, many actually get paid by the IRS instead 2) Low income earners actually still benefit by getting either lower taxes or higher credits.

The only example I saw of a regular person was in the Bloomberg article that was mentioned. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-20/how- the-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-20/how-the-tax-bill- will-affect-eight-american-families) The "renter in Milwaukee" went from paying $515 to actually being credited $400.

At this point, there is no way of having a reduction in tax bills that doesn't overwhelming favor the top 50% of earners, because they pay almost all the federal income taxes. In 2015 the top 50% of those that filed tax returns paid over 97% of income taxes (the last table cell at the bottom all the way on the right [https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- soi/15in03etr.xls](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/15in03etr.xls) )

EDIT: Based on experience on this board I knew this post would be downvoted, but I'm not exactly sure why. Please help make me a better contributor by telling me what I did wrong as you downvote, thanks!

<comment><USER28> _> At this point, there is no way of having a reduction in tax bills that doesn't overwhelming favor the top 50% of earners_

This is completely true.

The reason the top half pay all the taxes is _the top half have all the goddamned money_. And that, of course, makes sense: the top half have the only realistic chance at accumulating enough labor-derived money to buy into capital and they've been doing exactly that for the last fifty years. Capital is not linear per-hour. Capital is a multiplier. _That 's why they have all the money._ That they have all the money is the core and the source of the mess we're dealing with right now.

Which means there is another question to be asked: should taxes be lowered? As someone very firmly in that top half, I am benefited by having people in the lower half of the income distribution not starving and dying in the streets, not dying of easily preventable injuries and illnesses, and not being so crushed by debt that revolution looks appealing.

So are you. It's not about you, and it's not about me, but it's about _us_. We need to do better by _us_ , so _we_ can all keep this thing ticking along.

And I gotta say, it's important not to miss that even that Bloomberg article elides a really, really important question: how much of that net $915 from that hypothetical renter now goes to (poorly) covering for the cuts in other services that will be necessitated to avoid budgetary disaster? It's a hard question, because nobody really _knows_ , but it's a question whose answer will impact the people at the bottom of the income distribution the most, by far.

<comment><USER12> _> how much of that net $915 from that hypothetical renter now goes to (poorly) covering for the cuts in other services that will be necessitated to avoid budgetary disaster? It's a hard question, because nobody really knows, but it's a question whose answer will impact the people at the bottom of the income distribution the most, by far._

Yes, I think that is the main point, and what we should be talking about. I feel like as a country we have lost the ability to have a discussion at that level of depth. So instead we dumb down our arguments to the point where we mislead people just so they will accept our point of view.

<comment><USER28> I agree with that.

I would also note that there is a real and a mendacious reason for why we have lost that ability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The reason the articles focus on families ranging from the median up is because the vast majority of people below the median income don't pay federal income taxes. [1] The bottom 40% actually have a negative effective federal tax rate. So going from 0% to 0% isn't exactly informative. The title of this submission (originally _Please Don 't Show Us Another "Typical Family Earning $270,000 a Year"_ in case it is changed) is misleading. The $270k number references another article [2] that looks at a wide array of different possible income groups. The lowest it goes is a married couple with one child earning $40k as their effective rate goes from 1.29% to -1%. Nowhere is it ever stated or even implied that $270k is a typical family.

[1] - [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/45-of-americans-pay-no- fed...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/45-of-americans-pay-no-federal- income-tax-2016-02-24)

[2] - [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-22/trump- sig...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-22/trump- signs-1-5-trillion-tax-cut-in-first-major-legislative-win)</comment>