Broke - <AUTHOR> http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2015/9/8/9249681/broke <comment><USER2> I'll never understand why people reject the most sensible answer: allow high school students to be drafted into the NFL.

Even if they're not playing in the NFL for 2,3 or 4 years, pu them into a developmental league where they can earn $30K a year for a shot to make the league.

Then college is reserved for people who _want to go to college_ , not for people who have to go because that's the collusion that's been designed. It's been designed to protect the value of college football, which exploits poor athletes who otherwise have no way to make a living in sports.

The system is likewise awful for college athletics. Kids who have no reverence for school (why should they) break the rules, break the law and are coddled because they make millions for the university with no pay. Then we all have to pretend like we care about academics in student athletes, coaches impose 1-game suspensions during the 1-AA game week and everyone happily looks away.

Major League Baseball has solved this - you may be drafted out of high school, but once you start college you have to be out three years. It preserves the notion of amateur athletics - of trading your athletic skill for a shot at a degree - without forcing people to take that route.

<comment><USER3> Football is a different case from other college sports for one main reason: physical development. Your average NFL squad has players that are much bigger and stronger at every position.

A receiver who is 5'9" has a fighting chance to be successful in many college conferences where there aren't monstrous cornerbacks but absolutely no shot in the NFL where size is a requirement. Undersized and underdeveloped players also risk significant injury by going pro too soon. College players need at least a year or two to build up the physical condition to compete at the next level.

This is the reason why the worst NFL team would easily crush the best college team. The college team just wouldn't be able to handle the size of your average NFL squad.

<comment><USER4> The same conditions hold true for most baseball players drafted out of high school. They spend several years in the minors for this reason. Why not have a football minor league?

<comment><USER5> Baseball is a non-contact sport, probably less chance of injury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree with pretty much every criticism in this article. Where I differ in opinion is the solution.

First, there's the "me too" effect. If colleges pay football players, other athletes will want to be paid. They'll ask, "What makes football special?" and they'll have a point. Then we'll run into some unhappy truths regarding sports. For example: If colleges base compensation on revenue, the wage gap between male and female athletes will be massive.

Then there's the problem of mixing sports and education. If these athletes are paid, do they still have to attend classes? Do they have to get good grades? Are they given scholarships in addition to monetary compensation? Can athletes switch colleges if another school will pay them more?

It seems to me that most of these problems would be solved by creating a minor league separate from college. If people are so attached to college names, then the colleges can sell naming rights.

But honestly, I'm hard-pressed to find a sport more repugnant than football. If football came into being today, people would riot in the streets. Who would pay money to watch mostly lower-class, mostly black[1] players permanently damage each other's brains and bodies? Who would cheer during such an event? Yes, it can be argued that athletes know the risks, but the same is true for dueling. In the past, people thought dueling was fine. Today, we recognize it to be a barbarous tradition. I believe that, as we do with dueling, future societies will condemn us for allowing this sport to continue.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_players_in_American_prof...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_players_in_American_professional_football#Today)

<comment><USER7> I feel the brutality of the sport every morning when I get out of bed. And I was a scrub for the most part. But I wouldn't trade any of it. If it weren't for the increase in brain injuries and the muscle-mass maximizing arms race that ends careers (and limp-free middle age) on a weekly basis, I'd encourage my son to play. I absolutely loved the sport.

It still has its merits, and I'm still a huge fan, but there's a lot of ugliness that needs to be fixed before I'd encourage anyone to play. It's a lot like encouraging someone to serve their country. If the mission is clear and moral, no problem. But it's rare you're gonna find that these days. Just work hard and try to be happy. That's honorable.

<comment><USER8> > brain injuries and the muscle-mass maximizing arms race

The huge players and huge hits are a direct consequence of the modern changes to the game. Just go back to no separate defense/offense/special teams. Everybody runs the whole game. Maybe also bring the play clock down to 15 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've never understood _why_ the American model of mixing academics with athletics came to existence. I understand why it _continues_ , of course, since the status quo nearly always does.

The Australian(/European? I'm not sure) model of having schools only passingly involved with athletics, and then having the athletics clubs and associations as separate entities just makes much more sense to me.

First, it allows for amateur sports to continue well past high school/college, allowing those who compete for fun and fitness to do so. Sports, after all, shouldn't just something you watch on TV once you're out of school.

Second, apart from providing a fun diversion to students in much the same way as a video gaming club might do, why should any teaching institution be involved in sports? Surely that's outside the core mission.

</comment><comment><USER10> College athletes _are_ paid. I'm not just talking about getting free school. They get free housing, free food, and lots of other free benefits that are all completely allowed by the NCAA. That's without any of the shady booster money.

The athletes I knew (two large division 1 schools) got considerable housing and food stipends. They were quite a bit more than what most students were paying for rent in the area and these athletes had much more disposable income than most of the regular students I knew.

</comment><comment><USER11> One of the necessary things that needs to happen if we are to begin paying players is that there would need to be some serious contraction in the number of Division I Football teams. A team like Boise State is just not going to be able to keep up with players at the University of Southern California for example.

Since a lot of those would be in small, rural towns, there is A LOT of resistance to this outside the traditional power conference (and frankly some of the stragglers inside power conferences too for that matter)

<comment><USER12> Transfer payments would also work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The counter to paying college players is that it can be a gateway to the NFL, so college players play for "free" in exchange for access to a potentially very lucrative career. So why not a venture capital model? Pay players, with the condition that the university receives a % of their pro pay.

<comment><USER14> Top-tier college recruits shouldn't need a gateway to the NFL with their talent level.

We can stick with a tech metaphor: It would be like all tech companies and startups and VCs colluding to require a certain number of years in college before being willing to hire or fund anyone. And the universities would own any apps/code the kids wrote while they were in school. Obviously it would be ludicrously imbalanced for the top 18-year-olds in that situation to give up that much earning potential in exchange for a "gateway" to a profession that _needs them anyway._

Sadly people really get into tribalism, and have much stronger ties to their college than they would to any local minor league team, so there's tremendous amounts of money in play to maintain the status quo.

<comment><USER15> Agreed that they shouldn't need a gateway, but disagree on the 18 year old being ready. There may be one from time to time, but the extra 3 years of both skill and physical development makes a big difference for almost every player/position.

<comment><USER16> That's certainly true; it's true in most other sports as well. That's why for example baseball players spend anywhere from 2 to 5 or 6 years in the minor leagues before they make the big club (which many never do). There's no reason to prefer that they spend that developmental time playing for free on a university's team instead of for peanuts on a minor-league professional club. And there are plenty of reasons to prefer the alternative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Minimum wage is necessary

<comment><USER18> Minimum wage is a band-aide on gaping wound. The problem is that employers control employees lives, while employees at worst can take a company down - leaving the owner in a position where he just has to go get a job. The power obviously weighs heavily in the favor of the employer.

If everyone (and I do mean everyone including the 1%) was given a wage that could keep you alive and healthy, then there would be balance of power between employer and employee and you would see people taking advantage of each other much less.

<comment><USER17> Ha, you put it much more eloquently! I agree - the underlying problem is obviously how much the wealth disparity has grown.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's another possible solution, too, which for the 95% of post-secondary institutions you've never heard of is either already the status quo or would be a much more economical answer. That solution is to get out of the business of athletics. If you are not a "power 5" program or one of the top NCAA D-I basketball programs, athletics is a money-loser. The UAB debacle provides a pretty good case study in why this is so: there are only a handful of universities that the system will allow to make any money. So what looks like one problem is really two: first, the employee-athletes at the major athletic programs aren't being paid, and they should be. But the flip side of the coin is that many of the same retarded rules that harm those employees are being applied to people playing sports at much smaller programs, where they are not at all profitable and there is essentially zero chance that anyone is ever going to make their career as a major league athlete. That's the second problem.

The solution to the first problem is complex. It starts with paying your employees. But there's more to it than that: something has to be done about the fiction that those employees are fundamentally students. They're not. Scandal after scandal shows every trick and dodge in the book is and will continue to be used to keep functionally illiterate players off the academically ineligible list and on the field. It would be healthier, if these schools insist on keeping their highly profitable athletic programs, to partner with the NBA and NFL (baseball doesn't really have this problem) to transition their status to minor league affiliates. In the process, they could also cut the sanctimonious and absurd NCAA out of the game. No more scandals, no more bullshit. But it's going to take some work to get from here to there.

The solution to the second problem is very simple. For the other 95%, no more NCAA rules (they're designed for the big-money programs to deceive themselves, not for the others). No more TV, period. Not that most of them are ever on TV anyway, except for the one or two games a year they volunteer to be slaughtered by far superior competition to fund the rest of their season (in games which, for no conceivable reason, actually count for both teams!). No more licensing. If they want to sell merchandise, they can sell it at the campus bookstore. Not like any of them are making millions from Amazon or Foot Locker anyway. Above all else, no more "athletic scholarships", a profound contradiction in terms hardly anyone ever ponders long enough to recognize.

That means no more pressure, no more extended seasons, and no more faux students hanging around in hopes of transferring to a big-money program so they can get their shot at the big time. If you want to play intercollegiate sports, fine. But the reason those academic standards that are so low yet somehow impossible for the big guys to meet without cheating exist in the first place is to prevent students who don't have time for a hobby from being distracted from their studies. Raise them, high. If you don't have at least a 3.25, you have no business doing anything but studying. And without the pressure of having to maintain your "athletic scholarship", why should you?

No more games against hopelessly superior competition. You'll play against other teams of full-time students with no funding for fancy uniforms and gleaming locker rooms, at a simple gym or on a field shared with 8 other teams next to a single set of bleachers. High school baseball teams don't play against AA clubs; there's no excuse for pay-for-play in other sports, either. If you can't fund your athletic programs through student fees, they get cut. Simple as that. But stop pretending that "student athletics", a huge money loser and waste of time and energy, is a necessary part of your institutional identity, or that it "builds character". There's nothing wrong with intercollegiate athletics as a hobby, a diversion, another way to network, and a way to stay in shape while you study. But that's all it is. Don't let the tail wag the dog.

Because as bad as the futile aspiration of making a major-league professional club is for the 98% who never will, the small schools (or large schools with small athletic programs) forced to play by the same rules as the big boys are in exactly the same spot. The first step is admitting that you're not competitive and never will be. Once you've done that, a whole world of refreshingly decent options opens up.

</comment><comment><USER19> Let the poor demand to be paid. And ignore that for most universities, the sportsballs are net losses on the whole.

By all means pay them what they are owed. They are owed exactly what they demand and receive for contracting their playing services. If they can strengthen their hand by bargaining as a team, go for it.

<comment><USER16> They should be bargaining collectively, but they're not being allowed to do so. The NLRB acknowledged that football players at Northwestern University are employees, but then refused to say whether they can form a union on the basis of a technicality (specifically, that the university is a state institution, and the NLRB only has jurisdiction over private employers). So none of the employees in question is represented by a union, and it's not clear whether any or all of them are even legally entitled to such representation if they elect it.

I agree that this would go a long way toward addressing the fundamental inequity here, at least for the tiny fraction of employees whose skills are actually generating cash for their employers. It's pathetic that we can't agree that everyone has the right to join a union and bargain collectively if they wish, but that's where we are.</comment></comment>


On Netscape and CSS history: "here's the history that must not come to light" - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html/msg/358f05eb3e9a79b5 Note: Substitute the http://www.eit.com/ at the beginning of the URLs with http://1997.webhistory.org/ to see the actual messages. <comment><USER2> This isn't a big deal.

Anyone who followed browser development back then (1994) knows how it worked. Decisions about what went into browsers were based on how easily they could be implemented as much as what others were doing.

Yes, CSS was discussed in 1994. So was VRML (I think) and god knows how many other things. I mean, the Cello browser didn't render JPEGs (!).

Browser authors _made stuff up_ that they thought was useful. The usually did this by adding tags, because that was a lot easier than creating a whole other language like CSS

<comment><USER3> Let's see. 1994. If you've got a 66MHz Pentium on your desktop, you are living large and cutting edge [1]; most are still on 486s. If I recall correctly, we're still talking single-digit megabytes of RAM being the most you could reasonably expect. Browser authors are still feeling through the hardest text layout problem since TeX, and browsers are expected to do it realtime, on processors that today we'd consider low-medium end embedded processors. A problem still giving them fits, I might add; how many of us still feel our browsers render slowly even with machines a _hundred times more powerful_? Yes, we don't render the same pages, but that just proves my point more, the desire to do these computationally expensive things was there in 1994 but a page that takes 1 second to render today is, well, not even guessable back then because you probably ran out of RAM.

It wouldn't have mattered if they had suddenly had an attack of the stupid and tried to implement the hopelessly-idealistic-for-1994 CSS spec. It would have sucked anyhow. It would have been slow and buggy and basically ruined the entire idea of CSS for years. It's _better_ that they didn't try! There's no way they could have functioned with anything other than "Can I make this work?" and "Does it completely hork up my rendering engine?" being their two basic top priorities.

Always fun to step back and remember just how bad we had it all back then. How we'd have killed for a $300 netbook!

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium>

<comment><USER4> IE 3 which was released in 1996 had (partial) CSS1 support. I remember it being as fast as Netscape 3. (But that might be because bandwidth at that time were the bottleneck - rendering speed were not an issue, since it were still rendering faster than than the data arrived).

<comment><USER3> <http://endoframe.com/css/ie3.html>

Definitely just "the easy and computationally cheap bits of CSS". Supported: No. Supported: No. Supported: No. etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: Substitute the <http://www.eit.com/> at the beginning of the URLs with <http://1997.webhistory.org/> to see the actual messages.

</comment><comment><USER4> Netscape took a long time to embraces CSS. I guess "not invented here" was a big reason, because they actually designed their own CSS alternative: Something called JavaScript Style Sheets, which was somewhat like CSS, but used JavaScript syntax.

Wikipedia has a page on it: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript_Style_Sheets>, but as they write "It now remains little more than a historical footnote".

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, the reason why NS4 had buggy CSS support was that they tried to implement it by translating to JSSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Opera, of course, was at the forefront of Web Standards, even way back then.

(Hakon Lie is the CTO of Opera Software.)

<comment><USER6> Nitpick here, but he didn't start working at Opera until 1999.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I read through the message/post but I still don't get it. What exactly are they saying?

<comment><USER8> It is saying that the FONT and CENTER tags were added to HTML _after_ CSS was a public draft.

<comment><AUTHOR> >It is saying that the FONT and CENTER tags were added to HTML after CSS was a public draft.

And all the other Netscape tags.</comment></comment></comment>


The Launch of the Mayday Citizens' SuperPAC - <AUTHOR> http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/84419344732/the-launch-of-the-mayday-citizens-superpac <comment><USER2> This is admirable, but I don't think the rhetoric is realistic or effective. "Government has failed us. More than 90% of Americans link that failure to the influence of money in politics."

Most Americans also think we spend 10x as much money on foreign aid than we do. The cause of the current economic malaise is a factual issue, not a matter of public opinion.

I have a sincere question for the people who support Lessig's statement quoted above: how can America's current woes not be easily explained by deindustrialization and automation reducing the need for labor, thus putting labor in a disadvantageous position relative to capital?

I go into CVS or Wal-Mart, and see everyone using automated checkout machines with a few cashiers hanging around in case anything goes wrong. Ten years ago, those didn't exist, and there would be a long row of cashiers. Is campaign finance really responsible for the woes of the middle and lower class, or is it technology (and other factors that make Americans of average skill more fungible)?

I wonder if the focus on campaign financing doesn't mistake correlation for causation. I think people mistake the degree to political decisions are caused by the money, rather than the preferences being communicated through the money. For example, if you're a big corporation with hundreds of employees in a Congressman's district, you might advertise in support of him, to communicate the message that raising taxes will lead to reduced employment. What causes that Congressman to vote against raising taxes? The money that was spent, or the message that was communicated with that money?

I guess the bottom line is that rich people and corporations don't need to bribe politicians. In the modern economy, where they can replace most workers with machines or outsource most work to China, or even renounce their citizenship and live as an expatriate in Hong Kong, they have all the leverage. They use the money to communicate their preferences to politicians afraid of contravening those preferences.

<comment><USER3> I think you can definitely debate whether the Congress has done a good job addressing economic inequality and malaise. But Lessig's point is about more than that. It's that because Congress has become so dependent on campaign funds from a tiny portion they have become very unresponsive and unrepresentative to the interests they should be. In the video he mentions infrastructure, education, health care, climate change, the tax system. If they're spending half their time on the phone dialing for dollars, that is going to skew their interest and their votes.

I pledged.

<comment><USER4> > It's that because Congress has become so dependent on campaign funds from a > tiny portion they have become very unresponsive and unrepresentative to the > interests they should be.

I think people get who they vote for. It's not like there's an exchange where you can literally buy votes for dollars.

I'm more upset with the electorate for having under-informed or unexamined political opinions.

I think the first step is for Americans to find a way to disagree about politics in a congenial way. As long as it's rude to talk about politics, people will continue to get their information from ads, talk radio, yard signs, comedy shows, and hack blogs.

<comment><USER5> _I 'm more upset with the electorate for having under-informed or unexamined political opinions._

This is unavoidable. Your vote doesn't matter - the probability of it altering the outcome are infinitesimally (read: too small to represent with a double) small.

Unless you derive entertainment value from informing yourself, why would you waste any time on informing yourself or thinking carefully?

<comment><USER6> In Kantian ethics, there is a concept known as _universalizability_ : "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." If one subscribes to such a principle, and one believes that the world would be a worse place if everyone was willfully ignorant of important political issues, then one would hold that one has an ethical obligation to make an effort to become politically informed.

<comment><USER7> I guess I better not become a programmer, because if everyone became a programmer, there would be no one to farm the fields.

<comment><USER8> A much better rule is something like "act as if you are deciding for everyone who can be expected to make similar decisions for similar reasons". This avoids that particular pitfall, because everyone who might decide to be a programmer for similar reasons is still not too big a fraction of the total world population, while still giving the right answer re: voting

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Alternate Headline: Man vows to get money out of politics by throwing more money into politics

One thing I really don't understand about this movement to get money out of politics is what the alternative is? No money in politics? Well clearly _someone_ has to put money into politics or you'd never see signs up, you wouldn't see commercials, politicians wouldn't have websites to post their platforms on, etc.

It seems to me like what people actually want is better politicians and the influence of money is the current reason to see politicians as poor. People have always hated politicians though, didn't we have Nixon before this big money kick? What about Herbert Hoover? Surely he'd be accused of some corporatist agenda today for his blunders.

It seems to me if you don't like how politicians behave and are influenced that the solution is to reduce their power and influence. If, and it's a big if, money is the problem, the money will stop flowing if the benefit of spending it drops. The larger government gets, the more power we give our politicians, and the more beneficial spending that money becomes. Remove the incentives and this problem will fix itself. That probably means many more complaints about why we don't have specific social programs, research programs, defense budget and whatever else we spend money on, but it'll fix the issue of the influence of money.

<comment><USER10> One popular alternative is to have $X campaign funds provided by the government to candidates with $Y levels of popular support.

<comment><USER11> Begging the question of how candidates achieve the Y level of support. Either they are already well known figures (actors, athletes, etc), or they have to spend money to make themselves known.

<comment><USER12> Is knowing nothing about a candidate really any worse than knowing only what their paid advertisements tell you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like they are testing the fund raising mechanism.

The first goal is $1M in 30 days, the second is $5M in 30 more days. In both cases the funds will be matched, so they already have $6M near hand, and realistically there isn't that much more you can do with $12M that you can't do with $6M.

I suspect May is to get the first little news articles in the press (Kickstarter meets Elections, underdog to use super pac against super pacs). The June goal is for the follow up articles that should get more widespread coverage.

I'm all for putting campaign finance reform at the front of 2014 and 2016. I'm in.

###ALERT### Check for SSL before donating. As of now the page is not secured.

Edit: Broken autofill on the donation page? Come on, make it easy. I had to type characters and access my memory to make this happen instead of just clicking.

<comment><USER14> Also, it is just me or is the donation page using HTTP instead of HTTPS?

Maybe naive, but that's a showstopper for me.

<comment><USER15> Lawrence and crew just responded to my tweet on this. They use Stripe, which is encrypted. The SSL certs for the page that is unencrypted will be up later today.

[https://twitter.com/Boyko4TX/status/461902353105317891](https://twitter.com/Boyko4TX/status/461902353105317891)

EDIT: forgot to link the tweet.

<comment><USER16> I'm very unhappy with their replies on Twitter. They can't just say that the information is going to Stripe and Stripe is safe. The facts are, they have a form which asks people to put their credit card number in it. That form is on an unprotected page, which means it is vulnerable to some advanced attacks even before posting. Further, the form posts back to the same unprotected page. I don't see any evidence of fancy Javascript behaviors to prevent the posting, but even if it were so, they are still putting their users in significant danger of having that information plucked out of the air by anyone who might be able to sniff the traffic on any leg of the trip from the user's Wifi all the way to the company's firewall.

<comment><USER16> Okay, my facts weren't entirely correct.

The HTML of the form shows as POSTing to the same page, but the Stripe JS captures the submit event and cancels it, then makes an API call to Stripe's server via a secure connection. It works, but it is still somewhat vulnerable to MitM attacks.

I like @lessig's latest response. Much more firm and reassuring:

[https://twitter.com/lessig/status/461914159417147392](https://twitter.com/lessig/status/461914159417147392)

<comment><USER17> I just hit "donate" and it took me to:

[https://mayone.us/fec_compliance/](https://mayone.us/fec_compliance/)

Sincere thanks to everybody who complained to them about this - I wouldn't have donated without HTTPS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> PSA: You should wait to donate as your credit card information will be relayed unencrypted over HTTP on their donation page ([http://mayone.us/fec_compliance/](http://mayone.us/fec_compliance/)).

I'm hoping they'll fix this soon.

EDIT: They've added SSL, so go ahead and pledge!

<comment><USER19> They added SSL but it appears they are still making some kind of mistake. They claim to be using stripe.js (edit: [http://mayone.us/distribution- plan/](http://mayone.us/distribution-plan/)) which, as far as i know, creates a token so you don't have to send the credit card information over to your server protecting you from liability. It seems like they have still implemented it incorrectly. If you click "Pledge" it still sends the raw (albeit now encrypted) information to their wordpress server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As long as there are incentives to manipulate the political process, there will be money in politics, whether in the open or under the table. Money in politics has been a problem as long as there has been money and politics.

If this Superpac is successful(1), it will only prove that throwing money at the right problem in the right way actually works.

1) Given that the major changes have lately been Supreme Court decisions, this may actually require an amendment to the Constitution, so I am extremely skeptical that success is possible.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting that this is coming at the same time as the push for a campaign finance amendment to the US Constitution.

[http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/04/30/john- paul-...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/04/30/john-paul-stevens- taking-another-run-putting-his-imprint- constitution/RkBFe4veWWMk0AiT3Pon5I/story.html)

It's plausible $1-10 million could sway a few votes in the Senate if an amendment came to a vote.

</comment><comment><USER21> Lessig's 2011 book "Republic, Lost" is his first foray into the world of writing about politics. It's a fairly shocking read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm excited that he's partnering with a lot of great people to try and make campaign finance reform a reality.

<comment><USER22> His 1h talk about the contents of the book:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Really, the big money corruption is the revolving door between lobbyists and politicians / staffers. Lobby to stop politicians / staffers from becoming lobbyists or accepting jobs with companies that contracted with the government for 5 years after they leave their position will do more to take the money out of politics than this does.

</comment><comment><USER22> Money in politics is by far the biggest political issue, I'd say. It's the root cause of most evil in Congress. It's also the reason why Congress has so low approval rating (because they aren't listening to the People, but their _few_ donors), and why they are so useless in terms of collaborating with each other, too.

How can they collaborate for the "good of the people", when they come from a position of having to pass new legislation to protect the interests of their donors one way or another. When you look at it from this point of view, you realize why so many refuse to compromise on their positions. Maybe they could compromise on ideology a bit, especially if some solution seems to be getting the consensus approval, but it's a lot harder to compromise on what your donors want, and you have to deliver on their wishes if you want to keep the money coming to your re-election.

</comment><comment><USER24> I might be alone in this sentiment, but..

I dont have a problem with unlimited money in politics so long as there is daylight - If you want to spend money performing what amounts to electioneering, I think your name should go public with the amount of your donation.

Daylight by far is the best nostrum for corruption.

</comment><comment><USER25> > And that's the leap: It is impossibly hard to imagine raising $1 million in > 30 days, even as a contingent commitment (meaning, you only get charged if > we hit the goal).

That's because America is a poor country, and doesn't really want democracy. Compare to Russia - no, compare to Moscow:

[http://navalny.livejournal.com/845180.html](http://navalny.livejournal.com/845180.html)

76 million (unrevocable) rubles in 2 months, with about 32 rubles per dollar exchange rate. Summer 2013, Moscow mayoral race. For the candidate opposing Putin regime.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm curious: Why was this post bumped off the front page so quickly?

At the time of this comment, this post has 105 points, 79 comments, and was submitted 2 hours ago. Despite having more points and being younger than many posts on the front page, this post is on the second page. Is it due to the fact that this post is political in nature?

I'm sure a lot of HNers who haven't been on the site in the past 2 hours would appreciate this submission, so it's unsettling to see that it's no longer on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER26> I decided to do a site-restricted Google search on Larry Lessig's tumblr to see if he has written recently on public choice theory.[1] There are no hits on his tumblr at all for "public choice," even though there are plenty of hits for his discussions of the influence of money on politics. I guess I went to a different law school, where we learned about public choice theory in a mandatory class in our first year.

It's not so easy to fix public policy just by making something illegal that people are strongly motivated to do--a proposition that HN participants understand very well when we talk about drug policy, for instance. To better control the influence of people with a lot of money on a political system that also governs people who don't have much money takes a lot more than this SuperPAC. I'm not sure that it even represents me.

[1] [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html](http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html)

[http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21569692...](http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21569692-james-buchanan-who-died-january-9th-illuminated-political- decision-making)

[http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/publicchoice.htm](http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/publicchoice.htm)

[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html](http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> campaign money is such a narrow factor in elections. While I think these efforts are well intentioned, they will not be effective.

Billionaires buy media companies that lose money (Jeff Bezos is just the latest one). why? because they want to influence culture/elections/policy. The media has _way_ more influence in elections than crappy ads. But I don't people running around talking about the 0.1% controlling the media in America or doing anything to address that.

Here is the problem: Most voters are dumb / don't care. Rich people can spend money to influence dumb, apathetic people.

Solve that problem and you can get money out of US politics. Focusing on campaign money / lobbyist jobs is just a microcosm of the problem, and will only result in the money being moved to other ways of influencing elections/policy (whack-a-mole).

Show me a solution that prevents rich people from creating the stage for Bill O'Reilly and Rachel Madow.

</comment><comment><USER28> I put together a little gif a few years ago (post Citizens United) to show some potential paths to anonymity for money in politics. I should really update it with dollar figures and some more detail, but I think it roughly gets the point across.

[http://i.imgur.com/Hjp1b.gif](http://i.imgur.com/Hjp1b.gif)

<comment><USER4> Why shouldn't foreign nationals be able to make statements about U.S. political candidates?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Direct link: [http://mayone.us/](http://mayone.us/)

<comment><USER30> This link just redirects to mayone.us/countdown/ for me now which has nothing on it except for a signup form...

<comment><USER30> fixed now

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> We changed the url from [http://boingboing.net/2014/05/01/mayday-larry-lessig- launche...](http://boingboing.net/2014/05/01/mayday-larry-lessig- launches.html).

</comment><comment><USER32> He wants to "elect a large enough roster of congressmen and senators that they can pass meaningful campaign finance reform". Sounds like asking a wolf to feed on itself, I don't see this happening.

</comment><comment><USER33> For some more background on Lessig and his focus on campaign finance, check out his TED talk:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g)

</comment><comment><USER19> Do they want me to put my credit card and personal information in an insecure form? I'm trying to figure out if this form posts to a secure endpoint. I don't think it does.

<comment><USER34> [http://mayone.us/distribution-plan/](http://mayone.us/distribution-plan/)

" What payment processor do you use? Are my money and information safe?

We have decided upon using Stripe as our payment processor. Stripe has offered us a very competitive rate (for which we thank them), and Stripe is compliant with PCI requirements and no sensitive data hits our servers. When you enter in your credit card information, it is not stored on the mayone.us site and goes directly to Stripe via the Stripe.js API.

Or in short: Yes, your money and info are safe. "

<comment><USER19> Yeah I read that. But it's strange, when I enter in information and hit "Pledge" it posts the fields to another insecure endpoint:

[http://mayone.us/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php](http://mayone.us/wp-admin/admin- ajax.php)

Maybe I am missing something about how stripe works?

<comment><USER35> [https://stripe.com/help/ssl](https://stripe.com/help/ssl)

> Do I need to use SSL on my payment pages?

> Yes

<comment><USER19> I'm concerned about why they are posting to THEIR own server to begin with. Even if they were using SSL, it seems like some kind of misuse of stripe.js

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Has anyone ever done a statistical analysis of post voting patterns in political discussions to attempt to determine if any manipulation of the discourse might be occurring? Using non-public votes to determine comment rank seems like a ripe target for abuse since it can't be independently analyzed. I would love to see an outside audit of votes on a site like reddit to make sure there isn't corporate or political influence corrupting the exchange of ideas.

</comment><comment><USER37> What happens if you get backstabbed by these politicians? They tend to do that

</comment><comment><USER38> The irony of raising money for a SuperPAC to end SuperPACs...

</comment><comment><USER39> I hope they have some big names lined up to launch their "moonshot".

</comment><comment><USER40> Ha, ha. I too will throw stones into the ocean to get less water.

Say hello to trillions of $.</comment>


Everything you need to get up and running with Kotlin programming language - <AUTHOR> https://kotlinist.com/index.html <comment><USER2> Superkotlin and Kotlinist are great for beginners. Need more resources though.</comment>


Currencylayer API – real-time JSON exchange rates API suitable for Startups - <AUTHOR>

To all developers and startups:
Around a year ago I found myself looking for reliable, real-time, and AFFORDABLE currency exchange rate APIs, and it kind of left me high and dry.
Of course there is a number of gold-standard providers like XE, Oanda, etc, but I doubt that start-ups can afford paying way beyond $5000/yr to get real-time data.
I've also come across many open-source providers, but I was looking for RELIABLE APIs, and they just did not meet my requirements in terms of uptime, data coverage etc.
Long story short, about a month ago I launched the "currencylayer API", a real-time exchange rates & currency conversion JSON API targeting mostly developers and startups.
Brief overview:
- 168 World Currencies - Data sourced from two major Forex data vendors (uptime guarantee + high data coverage and accuracy) - Exchange rates are refreshed every 60 min, 10 min or even within the 60-second market window - Free Plan available (1,000 API hits, hourly updated rates) - Historical Rates, Single-Currency Conversion, Base Currency Switching, etc.
That's really just the half of it.
I'd be forever grateful if you took a look at https://currencylayer.com and spread the word!
Best, Paul <comment><USER2> Looks amazing!</comment>


Kurt Vonnegut Museum Opens in Indianapolis - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/11/14/a-kurt-vonnegut-museum-opens-in-indianapolis <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, the world outside of the Vonnegut Museum is performing an homage to him by attempting to recreate Harrison Bergeron.

I became a Vonnegut fan at age 12 when I tried to check out Breakfast of Champions from the local library, and they sent me home with a permission slip for my mom to sign instead. So of course I had to read all of his books. Then had to reread them a few years later to understand them.

"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." \-- Vonnegut

<comment><USER3> > Meanwhile, the world outside of the Vonnegut Museum is performing an homage > to him by attempting to recreate Harrison Bergeron.

Can you expand on this? Isn't a central part of that book radical equalisation, where today's world is full of people and institutions driving inequality to greater heights.

In the story talented people are forced to handicap themselves. What is the parallel of that to the real world?

<comment><USER4> Beyond that: to me, the thing that distinguishes _Harrison Bergeron_ in the field of dystopian literature is how relentlessly farcical it is. The "handicaps" are self-defeating because they blatantly advertise the advantages that they're meant to neutralize. The allegedly super-intelligent rebel protagonist acts like an impulsive idiot. His ultimate showdown isn't against a legion of high-tech enforcers, but against a shotgun-wielding bureaucrat.

In short, it goes beyond merely being unbelievable; it gleefully throws the whole notion of believability into a dumpster and sets it on fire because the fire is pretty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I read his books as a youth and enjoyed the stories. I re-read his books as a 60 yr old because they were very popular in the book bins scattered around the VA hospital I was at. This time I enjoyed the man and author. Some trivia: I always thought Tom Waits was clever to come up with the line "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is King" but that came from Vonnegut in "Player "Piano. I especially appreciated "Breakfast of Champions" because he inserted himself into the book as a character and stated that writing the book prevented him from killing himself like his mother. It helped me not kill myself as well.

<comment><USER6> > I always thought Tom Waits was clever to come up with the line "In the land > of the blind, the one eyed man is King" but that came from Vonnegut in > "Player "Piano.

This is a Gaelic proverb at least a couple hundred years older than either of these people.

<comment><USER7> Apparently Erasmus coined it, around 1500. But there's earlier inspiration. But it's not from the Bible, as I initially thought it would be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This technically isn't a new museum. Its been around since 2011. It's just been closed for most of the year as they have been moving to a new location.

<comment><USER9> It was the place that had some of his paintings on the wall, yeah?

Small, quaint place. Definitely worth stopping by.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fun fact: Kurt Vonnegut once invented a board game [1]. Called General Headquarters, it was apparently aimed at children. The game was never published and, to my knowledge, the rules of the game have never been made public.

[1] [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kurt-vonnegut-board- game_n_21...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kurt-vonnegut-board- game_n_2103785)

<comment><USER11> The article you linked mentions that the rules can be found at the library here, box 21 folder 9: [http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/index.php?p=vonne...](http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/index.php?p=vonnegutinv&i=4)

And someone on BoardGameGeek[1] says:

> A few years ago, after hearing about Mr. Vonnegut's GHQ game, I attempted to > get access to the appropriate boxes at the Indiana Library. Failing that, I > tried to persuade a fellow wargamer who lived closer to Bloomington than I > did to go and have a peek for me. And failing that, I applied to the library > for photocopies of the essential documents.

> This was all in aid of an article for Simulacrum.

> The library advised me that they could not photocopy any information from > Mr. Vonnegut's files without the approval of his lawyer-cum-copyright > holder/protector. So I contacted the lawyer, who wasn't aware that the files > contained a game designed by Mr. Vonnegut. Then I never heard from him > again.

> So I abandoned the effort to get, if nothing else, a copy of the rules. > Perhaps someone here who is near the library could stop by and check it out.

> John Kula

And later:

> John Kula's enquiry got as far as the librarian at the Lilly Library at IU. > She pulled the folder and said that it contained about "100 pages of > different documents about the game, including multiple drafts of the game > instructions, letters and notes about the game, etc.". So it appears that > Vonnegut did do a bit of thinking and testing of the game, for sure.

Someone also mentions that an "interpretation" of the rules is available at generalheadquartersgame.com, but that URL is gone and even archive.org doesn't seem to have a single copy of it. It's also unclear what exactly that "interpretation" was based off anyway.

[1] [https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/883385/kurt-vonneguts- board...](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/883385/kurt-vonneguts-board-game- general-headquarters)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cat's Cradle is tied for the funniest book I've ever read--it's absolutely hilarious from start to finish, while also remaining poignant to this day. The other book is A Confederacy of Dunces, which, like Cat's Cradle, causes me to smile fondly when I remember scenes and quotes from it.

<comment><USER13> I reread Cat's Cradle every couple of years. You can read the entire book in a 3-4 hour sitting. It is funny and sad, it loves humans and hates them. It is one of my favorite books of all time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Player Piano is a fantastic book and very topical in today's world awash in UBI, fears of automation, etc. Player piano is the GE's factory will take all jobs version of today's AI FUD.

<comment><USER15> AI has the potential for significant impact on civilization, but to embrace it as being only positive is naive at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I saw him when he came to give a talk at Edinburgh University in the early 1970s - very witty. And I've loved all of his books, particularly Mother Night and Cats Cradle.

</comment><comment><USER17> I fell in love with Vonnegut when I was in college.

A friend recommended Catcher in the Rye, but it didn't appeal to me, so he suggested Cat's Cradle.

After that I went on a binge.

I know Slaughterhouse-5 gets all the accolades, but for me Breakfast of Champions is my all time favorite novel.

</comment><comment><USER18> [https://outline.com/ps2vTZ](https://outline.com/ps2vTZ)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20191121134126/https://www.econo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191121134126/https://www.economist.com/books- and-arts/2019/11/14/a-kurt-vonnegut-museum-opens-in-indianapolis)

</comment><comment><USER19> Fantastic! Bluebeard is the book that inspired me to make the switch from poetry to novels. Vonnegut holds a special place in my heart.

<comment><USER20> Blue Beard fans, unite! Of his less-famous ones Deadeye Dick also stands out for me.

<comment><USER21> On the flip side, I just couldn't get through Hocus Pocus. Bluebeard and Sirens of Titan are my two favorites though.

<comment><USER20> I've read all of them but _Player Piano_ (started it twice, just got distracted both times, it wasn't bad) and _God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_. Of the rest, _Hocus Pocus_ and _Jailbird_ are the two that stuck the least.

 _Timequake_ was OK as a for-the-fans kind of thing I guess, but not great. _Bluebeard_ is already a kind of summing-up of Vonnegut's major themes and is quite a bit better, so _Timequake_ 's just... fine. _Slapstick_ is more memorable than _Jailbird_ and _Hocus Pocus_ but only for how incredibly bad it is.

I like or love all the other ( _counts_ ) eight novels.

<comment><USER22> God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is actually my favorite. Hope you get to it! Some of his later books, as you note, just got so preachy and overwrought, I couldn't get through them.

<comment><USER23> Yes he became a bitter old grouch, negative about everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Always loved his cameo in Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield, Burt Young and a young Robert Downey jr.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am glad that Vonnegut gets honoured, he changed the way of how i look at things.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if it closes before it opens, and then the hours change at random? Maybe you even leave before you arrive while spending 3 hours seeing the whole thing? It should be unstuck in time, at least.

</comment><comment><USER27> Please tell me there's a train you can ride around the museum with a small keyhole to look out through to help you better understand human perspective in relation to multiple dimensions

</comment><comment><USER28> I especially enjoyed his book Sirens of Titan.

Rented a tent a tent a tent

</comment><comment><USER29> Vonnegut is my favorite author by far

</comment><comment><USER30> So it goes.

<comment><USER31> That reference is more applicable when someone (or something) dies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> For those who don't know, maybe add author to the title?

I thought it was about Kurt Russel, the famous Snake Plissken.

<comment><USER16> It explicitly says "Kurt Vonnegut"

<comment><USER32> Even with that, I thought Kurt Vonnegut was the classic action movie actor. The name looks the part.

<comment><USER33> it must be hard being you.

<comment><USER32> Yes I don't know books.

But at least I know action movies.

<comment><USER16> But not surnames?

<comment><USER32> I know it's Kurt something with an impressive name that sounds as badass as the character name.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A "major breakthrough" in diesel technology significantly reduces emissions - <AUTHOR> https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/951029/diesel-car-breakthrough-emissions-engine-UK-fuel <comment><USER2> The article from autoblog is far better:

[https://www.autoblog.com/2018/04/25/bosch-diesel- emissions-b...](https://www.autoblog.com/2018/04/25/bosch-diesel-emissions- breakthrough/)

Everything in this article is pure marketing nonsense.

>Bosch says its technology uses a combination of advanced fuel injection, a newly developed airflow management system to recirculate exhaust gases, and intelligent temperature management, and it requires no additional new components. It says the technology drops nitrogen oxide emissions to one-tenth of the amount set under the stricter 2020 limits for Europe, even in real- world driving conditions. Bosch says the results hold consistent regardless of driving conditions, weather or how aggressively the vehicle is driven.

<comment><USER3> The Express is now a seriously disreputable paper, and you should be sceptical about anything they print. It's been losing readers and journalists for years, and is now largely full of sensation and puff pieces.

<comment><USER4> But hey, they publish important world affairs (TM) like [https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/950139/jeremy-corbyn- Ka...](https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/950139/jeremy-corbyn-Kate- Middleton-royal-baby-labour-live-update-hospital-Duchess-of-Cambridge)

(Or perhaps I just don't get the extent to which you English people fawn over your royalty, and a lot of you REALLY think it's OUTRAGEOUS that Corbyn took SEVERAL HOURS before congratulating?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reducing NOx is one a fine and noble effort, but there's not much new in this BOSCH corporate press release. However, there are plenty of technologies for reducing diesel engine NOx (1), including Selective Catalytic Reducers (SCR's), Exhaust Gas Recirculaters (EGR), and even injecting water into atomized diesel.

Further, reducing NOx is one thing, but you still have other harmful emissions notably SOx and black carbon. So to Dr Volkmar Denner, CEO of Bosch, who says: "There's a future for diesel. Today, we want to put a stop, once and for all, to the debate about the demise of diesel technology." I respectfully argue that until you can make Diesel as clean as H2 fuel cell, the push to eliminate diesel burning engines will go on.

For my money, the best environmentally sustainable 'fuel' is electric via Hydrogen/Air powered fuel cell, in which the hydrogen is generated by electrolysis powered by renewable generators (wind, solar, hydro). We've seen a significant push in the Maritime sector towards conversions of diesel engines to LNG-fueled engines. However, LNG (which may have significant methane slip - a really BAD greenhouse gas - if you're not careful) isn't nearly as clean as H2.

1\. [http://clean-carbonenergy.com/nox-emissions.html](http://clean- carbonenergy.com/nox-emissions.html)

<comment><USER6> >For my money, the best environmentally sustainable 'fuel' is

Of course there's also lots of really cheap, clean fuel, and ways to reduce GHG emissions, such as bicycling, sky sails, stairs/walking, telecommuting, etc.

I've never really seen the evidence that command and control style planned economies work very well.

Since undergrad, I've never heard a good argument as to why we shouldn't do what Musk recently supported: a tax on pollution.

Then let the market figure out where is best to put the money to solve the issue..? Then, if your ideas are correct--and they sound like they are--they would be more-widely adopted, and more efficiently implemented than bureaucrats would, as well.

<comment><USER7> Pollution is a problem for the whole planet - we already know this. What is the sense in "letting the market decide" (whatever that means. Markets don't make any decisions, but I digress) if we already know the outcome we want. Legislate what we want to do and let's move on with our lives.

<comment><USER8> We don't want H2 cars or bikes or cleaner diesel engines. We want less pollution. Making it more expensive to pollute than to not pollute is the most direct way of attacking the problem. "Letting the market decide" just means that the government ought not care _how_ we reduce pollution.

To respond to the GP post, IMO something like Cap and Trade makes more sense than tax for most forms of pollution; taxes only make sense for pollution when we have the ability to clearly quantify the harm done by the pollution. Most of the time we merely want to cap the amount of pollution, and cap-and-trade will more easily meet that goal than taxation.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for explaining the economics to the other user

>IMO something like Cap and Trade makes more sense than tax for most forms of pollution

Economists argue about this at length. Among those who write a lot to the public, you'll find figures like Mankiw among the most vocal supporters of a tax, and DeLong as one of the biggest supporters of cap and trade. Krugman, from what I have seen, seems to just want either one of them.

IMO the problem with Cap and Trade is that it _needs_ to be implemented perfectly. So far it has had problematic corruption. For example, in some cases the greatest offenders (coal generators) have been handed allowances... For free... Which they can then sell on the market at their fair market value. So if anything, it has been a reward for being the first to harm others.

Not only that, then you have Wall St entering the picture, and in 2008 they proved their marketplaces dont always work so well. Bureaucrats and politicians, attorneys and accountants, endless committees, and endless meetings... It's going to be another War on Poverty all over again, where trillions are spent and the problem is not only never solved, but there has arguably never been evidence the problem has even been _reduced._

Finally, how would cap and trade reward and incentivize micro and household economics? Are we going by an honor system on our tax returns to tally up our carbon allowances and deduct how many car pools, telecommutes, bike rides, stairs, cold showers, etc? This is all lunacy. Why try to do this in a heavy- handed way when this is the type of thing which markets are actually brilliant at solving. Probably because all those industry experts dont want to be obsoleted overnight.

<comment><USER8> Yes, handing the credits to companies for free is stupid. They should be auctioned off. Giving the coal companies credits is tantamount to saying those companies own the environment!

For CO2 at least the microeconomic incentives are simple because the amount of CO2 generated by burning fuel is fixed, so you can just require that retail sales of fuel come with a CO2 credit. For NOx, the emissions of which depend on many variables it's much more complicated, but I can't think of a good way of taxing those either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> /Looks at wind power 1/5th the cost of coal, and still falling

/Looks at batteries 1/5th the cost of what they were 10 years ago, and still falling. Just another 1/2 reduction to being cheaper than an ICE engine

Yeah.... even if this made diesel cleaner than baby smiles I don't think this is going to save diesel.

<comment><USER10> You're unlikely to find a bigger proponent of clean and renewable energy than me, but there's a long time before that is going to hit industrial end use where there are certain constraints.

The energy density of li-ion is .05ish mj/l, vs 50ish for diesel. EVs are about twice as efficient at converting that energy than gasoline ICEs but that's still a large gap (and diesel is much more efficient, but I don't have that ratio handy) where weight and volume are constraints. Also, refueling time is hard to get down economically (you can trade out a full set of battery cells for new/charged ones, but more vehicle weight/complexity and infra to accommodate that).

A more efficient diesel is more meaningful to vehicle trends in Europe than the US, but I think regardless of type of hydrocarbon fuel sources, commuter use cases are closer aligned with EVs and you're right there that this development won't stop the trend there (and non-commercial vehicle usage is an enormous, perhaps largest, source of CO2 pollution).

<comment><USER11> IC engines with transmissions take up vastly more space and weigh quite a bit more than electric ones do which limits the impact of energy density.

Electric has ~4,200 lb to work with before weigh for components before you consider the weight of fuel. [https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-620-april-26-2010-...](https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-620-april-26-2010-class-8-truck- tractor-weight-component)

Mack trucks get ~6.5 mpg, so a 350 mile range would take ~5 Tesla battery's ~6,000 lbs. That's a little low, but far from useless just add how battery swaps and it's completely viable.

Long term, the move to in road charging means electric trucks will actually save significant weight over IC engines while also having unlimited ranges. [http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/18/technology/uk-electric- cars-...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/18/technology/uk-electric-cars- roads/index.html)

<comment><USER10> That magnetic induction charging embedded in lanes in roads is really interesting and I didn't know about it. Thank you!

To be fair, 350 is low. Don't semis vary around 150 gallons of fuel capacity? There will also be a balance to update roads vs choosing rail in a multimodal logistic chain. Maybe the smaller EV range would be appropriate there for last mile. Anyway, I know it's complicated but I sure hope we solve this urgently.

<comment><USER9> Tesla initially had a battery-swap feature at its earliest Supercharger stations, but no one used it. For consumers, the recharge time was good enough even then.

Long haul trucks will probably use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That article is light on how they tackle the thermal aspects of NOX exhaust.

The key challenge to diesel engines is that the combustion is essentially a chemical reaction in vastly different thermal conditions depending on the outside temperature. Every engine has a "sweetspot" thermal range where they are really efficient in burning diesel fuel and washing out NOX from the exhaust fumes. Once you're outside that sweetspot, there is little you can do.

</comment><comment><USER13> The problem is this :

[http://english.gov.cn/policies/infographics/2015/06/02/conte...](http://english.gov.cn/policies/infographics/2015/06/02/content_281475119391820.htm)

China plan to have 80% of the EV market in next to no time with 80% being of all sales globally. If Chinese EV cars are just a better product than diesel banger style cars then diesel is dead. The switchover would happen more like the death of analog film, economics kicks in at some point and the network of fuel stations goes much like how the network of places you could get film processed has utterly vanished.

Film people thought it was all about SLR lenses and film grain, petrol heads are the same except they think about the joys of a manual transmission and the silly fart noises that come out of their exhaust. Much like how nobody would give up the camera on their phone for some 35mm SLR camera it will be the same with electric cars, nobody would give up their electric car to drive exclusively diesel or petrol. That is where that analogy ends, nobody was subsidised to give up their 35mm camera to go digital.

The Bosch press release is indicative of attitude problems, although petrol/diesel may be 98% of the market now that can be changed with a fall from being relevant much like what happened with analog film. It takes a generation to come along and the Luddites eventually shut up or die.

Although Bosch do amazing 'leccy powered systems for cars the manufacturers have not been quick to start using those components. Maybe this is a bit like a new CPU, e.g. when the Z80 came out in '76 it took a few years before the mass market ZX Spectrum came along to use it. Zilog didn't go ahead and make their own complete system, they just waited a few years for others to do that. Maybe this is where Bosch are now with their EV goodies. It is all going to work out fine, we will all be driving Chinese electric cars.

</comment><comment> shaki-dora If you break it through application of force, then replace it with electric, Diesel actually does pretty well.

Kidding aside: this is a vacuous press release regurgitated by a tabloid, and doesn't deserve attention.

</comment><comment><USER14> How will this tech alter the standing of diesel against petrol in terms of environment friendliness?

</comment><comment><USER15> If diesel is less refined than gasoline how is it possible that it could produce __less* pollution, than gasoline?

Diesel has always been an illusion to me, like turning lead into gold.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does it reduce them as much as EVs do? If not then, it's not enough.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. Pollution management should always be more cost-effective when done at power plants, vs distributed across every vehicle on the road. Let's get there as soon as we can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I Think Volkswagen already figured this out... all they need to do is have a testing mode that applies more filters and turn it off when you're driving around and can pollute freely w/o government telling you what to do with your freedom. problem solved?</comment>


19 year old brazilian hacker reveals how he rigged the elections - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.viomundo.com.br%2Fdenuncias%2Fvoto-eletronico-hacker-de-19-anos-revela-no-rio-como-fraudou-eleicao.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The article isn't clear on the encryption methods used on the data transferred between the voting machine and the system that actually account votes. But it seems to me that Brazil's government is being anything but incompetent in the data security subject.

Can't wait to read the book that'll come out of the seminar.</comment>


Flightcar (the airport car parking/rental option) is shutting down - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2016/07/14/flightcar-to-shut-down-sell-technology-to-mercedes-benz/#13fd99f73f3a <comment><USER2> This is too bad. I used the service probably five or six times. They were always my go to for renting a car from the airport. (Never used them to lend out my own car, however.)

Interesting to note, PG said this about FlightCar in 2013: "They went from what seemed like one of the least promising startups in the batch to one of the most promising in the batch." ([http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/03/27/smaller-c...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/03/27/smaller- class-new-failure-filter.html))

FlightCar anecdote from the early days: I rented a car from BOS and drove it to a wedding about 4 hours away. Got a call from FlightCar that they actually needed the car back (don't know if the owner returned early, or it was a scheduling screw-up.) So someone drove the 4 hours to me in a different car, met me in my hotel parking lot 30 minutes before the wedding, and we swapped cars. :)</comment>


Flux Capacitor Listing at O'Reilly Auto Parts - <AUTHOR> http://www.oreillyauto.com/flux-capacitor.html <comment><USER2> ThinkGeek.com had a flux capacitor listed at one point too... I didn't buy it because it looked very tacky. (Smaller units are still for sale, apparently.)</comment>


Introduction to End-to-end encryption in Thunderbird - <AUTHOR> https://support.mozilla.org/it/kb/introduction-to-e2e-encryption <comment><USER2> Using OpenPGP?

Just no.</comment>


What You Can Do with a 13-Year-Old Laptop - <AUTHOR> https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/what-a-thirteen-can-do.html <comment><USER2> Getting a quality battery is the biggest obstacle for me to use old hardware. Otherwise would honestly consider using a PowerBook G3.</comment>


9 SEO leaders reveal their most significant wins - <AUTHOR> http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/9-seo-leaders-reveal-their-most-significant-seo-wins

<comment><USER2> I love the honesty from Sujan Patel. They basically took advantage of a fluke that greatly benefited the website. The site was edu.com, and they utilized everyone across the web accidentally linking to, for example, harvard.edu.com instead of harvard.edu by building out a bunch of subdomains for thousands of colleges.

(Worth noting, this doesn't seem to be in place any more. No surprise really. This is probably the real takeaway, that taking advantages of loopholes doesn't work long-term.)

<comment><AUTHOR> spot on. loop holes (especially in SEO) will hurt you in the long run if you abuse them. best idea is to just stay away from them and provide lots of value.. which is easier said than done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This list essentially boils down to; create good content. People have been giving that advice for as long as I can remember, but I can't ever remember a list where x SEOs all gave it as their only tip.

Kind of a nice turnaround.

Also, they've only interviewed 8 people here, or am I missing something? (Not that 8 isn't enough, just sayin')

<comment><USER4> Except it doesn't, because Rand talks about internal docs (not public facing), Adam talks about his agency, Sujan talks about smart competitor/backlink analysis, Ross talks about technical Penguin recovery, Wil and Adam talk about outreach methods, and Paddy talks about a penalty recovery.

Hmmmm.....

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The comments in the post are about SASS and LESS which was a different post.

Not sure how that happened but they might wanna fix that.

<comment><AUTHOR> disqus has been acting up for us in the past few weeks. thanks for pointing it out!</comment></comment>


$72M high school football stadium in Katy, Texas - <AUTHOR> http://www.ajc.com/sports/take-look-this-72m-high-school-football-stadium-katy-texas/5mZaadSIfoKGpHqnCMTiLP/ <comment><USER2> Considering most of the Taxpayers probably suffer from CTE, it isn't surprising that they would vote something like through.

Texas is special, they invest more in football than Academia. They actually tax Academia through tuition to support their sports teams. Then they all complain that thousands of H1B's show up to take all the IT/CS jobs because sports was way more important than teaching the kids something about science. It's fascinating driving by the brain injury fields to see the 8 year old kids banging heads and their parents cheering them on.

My son has moved on to Uni but I noticed the District School Board took 3.5 million left over from the last bond election to put artificial turf on the football field at both the HS and Middle School. I bet you didn't know that 10-13 year olds needed artificial turf to play football.

You would have thought they could build a pretty good lab for the sciences with that money but who needs that in this day and age?

No wonder we have lost our competitive edge in the sciences and so much talent has to be imported from countries where math, physics, biology, chemistry, etc take precedent over sports.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's ridiculous - but it is being shared by eight high schools...

</comment><comment><USER4> Meanwhile, they have one of the highest property tax rates in the nation. Good to know what I'm paying for.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ahh yes, the south, where football is life.</comment>


Ask HN: Founder selling some shares - <AUTHOR> Writing from a throwaway account for obvious reasons. I am Founder at a small but fast-growing startup, and my and co-founder we got an offer to sell some of our shares and continue to build the company with the old and new investors. Both of us are worried that it is going to alienate some of the team members who will see me and my partner make a (small) windfall. It won't be anything big by any means, but we fear that it will upset some of the folks who have been with us through the trenches. We obviously mean to continue building the company and do right by all the employees in the long run. Either way, are there any founders here who have been through similar situations and can offer some words of advice? <comment><USER2> FWIW, This same type of event DID demotivate me and a lot of my co-workers who were early employees at a startup (now 1000+ person company). The company raised a round and the founders sold off some of their shares. We knew because they bought nice cars/houses after the event. Our shares got diluted.

From our perspective, it seemed like a slight vote of no confidence in the company and a little unfair to us that we didn't get the chance to sell shares whereas they did. You lose a bit of that "we're in this together" vibe that makes it organically motivating to work at a place.

Just my 2c, but consider arranging a situation where employees can sell up to a percentage of their options as well. A small percentage makes the eventual payoff palpable and will reduce resentment. You'll likely need to sustain the high levels of motivation for your fast-growing startup to continue it's success.

<comment><USER3> > From our perspective, it seemed like a slight vote of no confidence in the > company

It is. But it is not a bad thing: founders have very little besides their shares in the company in the world. Banks won't touch them when they apply for a mortgage or a car loan. Employees have safety nets that founders have to do without. Reducing some of the risk to sleep better is actually good for the company.

That 'vote of no confidence' is always there, start-ups are risky by nature. It's perfectly ok to de-risk a bit after carrying the vast bulk of that risk after some time has passed.

> and a little unfair to us that we didn't get the chance to sell shares > whereas they did.

So, found a company yourself. See what you feel like after you've been slogging for a decade or so without any net. It is always super easy to berate the position of someone else when you yourself are taken care of.

> You lose a bit of that "we're in this together" vibe that makes it > organically motivating to work at a place.

You lost something that you never had in the first place. Founders, employees and investors never have exact alignment of their goals.

> Just my 2c, but consider arranging a situation where employees can sell up > to a percentage of their shares as well.

Employees typically have so little stock that this makes no sense, but in the few cases where employees have a significant amount of stock it might make sense.

Also, in many companies employees do not hold their stock directly, but as options and those options may not have been exercised yet.

<comment><USER4> >> and a little unfair to us that we didn't get the chance to sell shares whereas they did.

>So, found a company yourself. See what you feel like after you've been slogging for a decade or so without any net. It is always super easy to berate the position of someone else when you yourself are taken care of.

>> You lose a bit of that "we're in this together" vibe that makes it organically motivating to work at a place.

>You lost something that you never had in the first place. Founders, employees and investors never have exact alignment of their goals.

Don't startup employees normally take below market wages and work crazy hours to get the company going? They're not in as deep as the founders but they are making sacrifices for the company.

It's not like they are talking about taking on more investment here and everyone's getting diluted. It's the founders giving themselves a little personal enrichment ahead of all the other agreements that the employees agreed to.

Why would you expect the employees to continue to make the sacrifices to keep the company going if you do this?

<comment><USER3> > Don't startup employees normally take below market wages and work crazy > hours to get the company going? They're not in as deep as the founders but > they are making sacrifices for the company.

I'm not sure if I managed to make my point coherent enough, but 'below market wages' versus being up to your neck in debt are not exactly equivalent.

Some of the founders that I know have gone so far as to sell their personal belongings in order to get the company its initial funding. So sure, early employees make sacrifices too, but those are usually not at the same level. It is 'I am making less than I could' vs 'I risk all that I have built up over the last decade or more'.

> It's not like they are talking about taking on more investment here and > everyone's getting diluted.

Well, that is not necessarily mutually exclusive. You can take on more investment _and_ take some money off the table at the same time. Usually investors frown at this early on in the life of a company but after 3-5 years it is relatively common practice.

> It's the founders giving themselves a little personal enrichment ahead of > all the other agreements that the employees agreed to.

No, it is the _investors_ ensuring that founders can concentrate on the company rather than on their personal financial issues, which is good for everybody.

As for the agreements: if employees agree to be treated different from founders then that is their choice, you do not _have_ to accept those terms. In general I never understood why early hires feel that 0.001% of the company is a fair compensation compared to founders that got together the week before and each put up $50 for their shares, but that's a totally different issue. Once you agree to that it's a done deal. Regret is hardly ever a valid reason to review a signed contract.

> Why would you expect the employees to continue to make the sacrifices to > keep the company going if you do this?

I don't expect employees to make sacrifices at all. I expect employees to run the numbers, do the best they can by themselves and to (collectively if necessary) negotiate to the best of their ability. If they are unhappy with the way the founders comport themselves they can always use their most powerful option: vote with their feet.

To me it sounds like a case of utterly misplaced jealousy: if you think that founding a company and taking on the bulk of the risk is easy then you should found a company yourself. If you are unable to run the numbers and you'd rather have a CEO that can't get a mortgage or buy transportation vs one that is 100% focused on what matters then you are acting against your own interest and the company interest through pettiness.

That all started when - as an early employee - you agreed to a deal where you are not treated the same as the founders when it comes to the stock that you hold. In _my_ company all employees and important freelancers hold the same class stock as my own, they paid for it (no options) and if I sell they have a right to go along with each sale.

But that does not mean every company is run like that and I can afford to do this because I already have a few successes behind me. Even so, if you are going for a worse deal then I assume that that is because you saw something positive in the longer term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We made a similar arrangement a year ago, and it didn't cause any significant issues. We chose to be transparent about it, and every employee was allowed to sell the same percentage of their shares (as long as they're vested) as the founders. Most chose not to sell.

People should understand that building a successful independent company is easier when the founders don't have to worry about their financials.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why don't you make it fair, like "everybody can sell X% of their vested shares". You can even be nice to employees and do it like "everybody can sell max{Z pieces of stock, X% of vested}", and set Z so that people will be happy, but it's still not too much. The co-founders have more, so they'll get more $, but everybody is okay with that. I had this happen at one of the companies (I was an employee), it was totally cool.

If you don't let employees cash out some of their stock, the good ones will leave. Remember, every company on the face of the earth is looking for good Sw.Eng., PM, DS these days; it's a seller's market, good people will just pack up and go on to the next gig.

<comment><USER7> For sure agree with this—letting your employees get a (very small) windfall themselves might make it easier for them to justify hard work and (potentially) lower pay. It also just shows you really care about your employees.

<comment><USER3> Depending on how long they have held the stock it may be a very small amount of money. Typically a real pay-out would require having held the stock for 3 years or more at a minimum, so this would benefit only the earliest employees in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Suggestion: let them sell X% of their vested shares as well. Ive heard of a company that did this with X=10. You could buy it from them too if investors do not see the value in cashing them out.

<comment><USER9> I just read all the solutions here, and this seems fair. That way they have no reason to be upset - they can take some profit now, or risk holding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is 100% normal, and very common.

You owe it to your employees to take everything off of your "mental plate" that doesn't relate to building the company. Your primary objective should be ensuring the business does well, employees are treated well, progress is being made etc.

Paying rent, worrying about food costs, etc should never be a primary concern if you have investors (for the investment's sake as well) and especially if employees are also shareholders (the value of their equity is at risk if you or other key members are personally at risk).

I've heard that usually around the Series A is when investors make the founders take some money off the table so they aren't living out of their car, eating ramen everyday, or dropping their child-care responsibilities, among other risk factors.

With all that being said, you can do good by your employees by offering liquidity to the earliest employees who have stuck it with you for X number of years or through some significant specified milestones.

<comment><USER11> Agreed... this is called "partial founder buyout" btw and helps align investors and founders.

Your investors want you to shoot for the stars... it's hard to do that when you're worried about rent, bills, etc.

Additionally, your EMPLOYEES benefit from this too as you're now thinking like investors and want to grow the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is standard now, so that the founder can buy a Tesla and a house and get focused on the long term to maximize the company without taking the first buyout. Employees job is to do the work, trust them to understand. Don't buy a Ferrari and you'll be fine.

<comment><USER13> No one pays employees enough to buy houses; it's pretty surprising that you don't have to make a successful exit to earn that much as a founder.

<comment><USER14> Depends on where you live. There are lots of places in the U.S. where you can buy a house on a developer's salary. Not all startups are located in areas where the cost of real estate is ridiculously high.

<comment><USER13> We're talking about startups, it should be pretty clear what geography is implied. You can live in those places but getting VC funding in one of them is an anachronism if it's possible at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a founder too. If I did this I'd expect my employees to be mad. Bad visually. Why are they buying your personal shares and not shares from the company.

<comment><USER3> Risk balance. Founders are essentially non-diversified investors. All of their wealth is tied up in a single investment. It is very sensible to take at least some money off the table after initial value has been built to ensure that you don't end up in poverty if things go South. Doing that reduces the chances of things going South because you have one less thing to worry about.

<comment><USER16> Employees are as well.

<comment><USER3> Employees have employment contracts, can apply for mortgages and credit to buy cars. Start-up founders tend to have a hard time with those things, especially if they went heavily into debt to be able to fund their start-up in the early days.

It's not rare where I live to have founders rent crappy houses and employees buy their place because banks will not touch founders from a risk perspective.

<comment><USER17> This is accurate, non-founders don't have a clue how hard normal everyday things can be, like even buying a crappy used car for a fair interest rate. I got downvoted in my other comment likely because I pointed out I would be suspect of early employees that get upset.

Fact is, if you explain to early employees the truth and they get upset than they MAYBE aren't in it to win with the team, because if they are they would see you as a founder needing to be able to function in everyday life as critical to the business succeeding. But this is the exact reason I usually have seen founders hide the fact they do this and try to hide even purchases or say they came from a family member. Personally, I prefer the transparent method myself, but understand why people hide it so often.

<comment><USER3> In my company we are radically transparent regarding stock deals, hires, our financials, order pipeline and so on. So far that seems to work well, time will tell what it does in the longer run. It's an experiment of sorts. We also do not have class 'B' shares and do not have an ESOP but issue stock directly to employees (or sell founder shares). It's a bit of an odd duck as companies go because the ramp-up to the point where others could join was 8 years.

<comment><USER15> 8! When I made my first comment I assumed you were younger. This may make employees less mad, due to company age but I'm still not clear why the company doesn't just issue more shares rather than owners selling theirs. Have you been getting paid? Are you planning on leaving? Why divest?

<comment><USER3> Good questions.

I'm 53, have worked pretty hard all my life. It's time to pass the mantle. I've allocated 40% of the stock in my company for the people that will pull the cart, will draw down to 51% as long as I'm CEO and will then drop to 10% in an MBO when the time is right. I do not want to become a backseat driver. The consultancy arm is small and quite profitable, we do our own investments and have more work than we could reasonably deal with, and a very impressive array of customers.

I've been getting paid but about 1/2 of what I was making when I was still running the whole thing by myself, I see that as an investment and as a way to make the company less dependent on me as a person. To turn a one-man consultancy into a scalable company has been a major challenge but I think we have the hard part behind us.

Our profit allocation is: 1/3rd shareholders, 1/3rd employees, 1/3rd investments. That gives us plenty of opportunity to dogfood our processes, and ensures that people get paid for their efforts.

> Are you planning on leaving?

Not immediately, but somewhere in the next couple of years. What will happen is we will split the investment and the consultancy branches, I will continue to run the investment part and my partners will run the consultancy, maybe some will join the investment part, time will tell.

> Why divest?

Because of (1) diversification, (2) the stock already being issued and (3) it being more tax efficient both for me and the rest of the partners here.

Accelerated vesting in case of a liquidity event has been put in place as well, there is a tax liability there but it is manageable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Depends a lot on the situation. If the two of you bust your asses and the company is on a great track to liquidity for the employees, I'm sure people would feel fine (though in that case, why not just pay yourself enough salary?). If there's still massive risk that employee equity goes to zero, as an employee I would be pretty turned off by the fact that the founders want to cash out.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why don't you share some with the employees?

<comment><USER16> This. I think this makes the most sense. Your earliest hires took a risk as well by turning down big $$$ from Google, etc. to partake in sharing your vision and gave you this opportunity to cash out by building your company to this point.

I'm not sure what the situation looks like, but I've seen startups where the founder(s) have 50-90% of the company and then the first engineer who built the entire tech stack from the ground up has an illiquid ~1-2%. That is pure exploitation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is the sneaky little secret behind being a founder. It's not only common it's expected. No one wants you worried about money while running the company. If you're in the valley most seasoned employees know that it happens.

<comment><USER21> It is not common or expected unless the company is very successful. For most companies, investors will be disappointed if you want to sell before an exit.

<comment><USER20> I've never worked for a company successful or not that hasn't. Maybe it's different in other places in the valley but I've seen founder buy houses while their company fell apart. I don't think I've met a founder who hasn't after their series B

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wouldn't do this without providing a pro-rata opportunity for the employees. The employees, as small minority shareholders basically have to trust you to treat them fairly and equally, understanding that you, as larger shareholders will obviously be getting a multiple of their payout. If you cash out without giving them the same opportunity, you've broken that trust. You say that "We obviously mean to do right by all the employees in the long run", but they don't know that for sure, and the best guide they have to what you'll do in the future is what you're doing now.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why not take the small windfall and offer to buy a portion of your employees' shares or give them a bonus?

</comment><comment><USER17> There is no issue with this, taking some life pressure off founders is not bad, it lets you focus where you should. Could it upset some early employees, yes it could, but I'd argue done properly it won't and done properly anyone who gets upset should raise your eyebrows about why they are there.

Two ways to go about this though, one is 100% transparent to the (at least early) employees and tell them exactly what is happening. Second is not to tell them anything about your personal situation as frankly as long as the business is moving forward appropriately and has enough money to reach the next milestones there is no issue. Under the second scenario you only mention the raise going directly to the business as that is all that is relevant to the team. The personal share sale is just that, private and personal. In no way will you be getting wealthy off doing this, you will simply get some living money which you have probably foregone over the past few years, more so than early employees likely.

If you do it transparent, I'd present it exactly in the manner above. e.g. "Look, we are taking another X round and as part of the round we are selling a small amount of founders equity to relieve some of our personal life pressures so we can stay 100% focused here". Be honest, you gave up making money to do a startup willingly but that doesn't mean life stopped moving forward and you have bills to pay just like everyone else. Honestly if they can't understand it they may not be there for the right reasons anyway and it will be some insight to the early team members. Early employees might be below market, but likely aren't so far below that they are getting hurt, and if so they'll leave soon enough, rightfully and understandably.

</comment><comment><USER24> If your company is actually growing, you should not sell shares. They will be worth more later and the optics are bad. Much better to adjust your salary/bonus to address personal cashflow issues.

<comment><USER25> This is bad advice. No one should have all their (paper) net worth tied up in one investment. Selling secondary shares is just sensible, even assuming you believe in your company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Another perspectivemight be that selling a small amount of shares gives the founders the financial stability to weather any storms. Let's say they sell 2 mil worth. Small in the grand scheme of things, but invested wisely can cover food, modest rent in an apartment etc for life assuming they do odd jobs.

Then again I come from a working class background, so I may have a different perspective.

</comment><comment><USER27> Make sure to have a lawyer go over your operating agreement to make sure that you are selling your shares in accordance with your operating agreement. Also consider the risks of control. Depending on structure, you could inadvertently lose control if you have it now. That said, taking cash off the table is never a bad Idea if it means giving yourself breathing room.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you don't take some money out, everyone on your team will be worse off. They need you to lead to company and make their equity worthwhile - they don't want you worrying about rent/mortgage/school/whatever, and they especially don't want you to sell the company too soon because you don't have any money.

</comment><comment><USER29> Gotta look after yourself first. I'd suggest not making any immediate lifestyle changes or flashy purchases to minimize morale impact. Furthermore if you're still putting in the effort that will be obvious to employees.

</comment><comment><USER30> Ignore concepts of "fairness" and think purely about cause and effect.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is only acceptable if your company is very successful and it is clear you have made a lot of value for your team and your investors. If the success isn't there, it will cause lots of problems. If you take money off the table when everyone else's success is still in question, you'll lose the trust of your team. A founder selling 5% of their stock could be a lot of $, but 5% of employee #2s is likely much less so the impact of their participation is much less.

</comment><comment><USER31> Offer to buy some shares of employees and spread some of the cash for Xmas if any have vested.</comment>


Ask YC: How do you discover niche content? - <AUTHOR>

We are working on learning more about a niche domain. We would also like to leverage our exposure to new content in this niche domain to develop a Niche Social News feature for our niche market.
How do you go about discovering new niche content?
I have tried Google, Google Reader, Yahoo pipes and the other Social bookmarking websites, but not with much success. I suspect something is flawed in how I organize what I discover.
How do you guys do it? <comment><USER2> Links from other niche-content websites, usually forums. Google to start the hunt.

Here's how I found the HP fandom: I was browsing Salon TableTalk at work because I had nothing to do. Stumbled upon the Books section, then Harry Potter. Found that somebody had posted a some fanfiction they'd written (which at the time I thought was the leaked Book 4, because I had no idea what fanfiction was) along with a link to FanFiction.net. Started reading FanFiction.net. A few months later, found a review on FF.net that asked where all the good Harry Potter fanfiction had gone, and a reply that said "A lot of folks have migrated to SugarQuill or FictionAlley." That's how I ended up at FictionAlley.

I have a similar strategy with music, where I also have very niche tastes. Heard a Transsiberian Orchestra song on the radio that I absolutely had to find. Found it on a ratio FTP site, where it was filed in with a bunch of Savatage songs. Googled Savatage, found out they had the same producer and most of the same musicians. Checked out the official Savatage fan site, its forum has a section for "other bands", kept hearing repeated mentions of Dream Theater. Downloaded a couple of their songs, bought a couple of their albums. Checked out their fansite. There were mentions of a couple upcoming rock operas - Avantasia and Nikolo Kotzev's Nostradamus - that I ended up buying. My screen name actually came from this period of my life: I was looking for a fandom pen name that I could be reasonably sure would not be in use at any site I registered at, and had just bought the Nostradamus rock opera.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you can't find it on Google, you might be looking at too small a niche to be of use. You can type in "Dachshund Lovers" and find ten pages of search results about them. If a group is any smaller than that, there just might not be any content to find, or at least not enough for a social news site.

I assume you've used Google Blog Search and Technorati, then followed links from the blogs you did find? Social bookmarking sites aren't very great for highly non-technical niches. Your Average Joe has never heard of delicious.

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you trying to find a new niche market, or get more information about a specific niche market?

If it's the former, you need to get interested in a niche market. I'm sure there's something semi-rare or different that you're interested in that isn't quite main-stream.

If it's the second, then that depends entirely on the market.

<comment><AUTHOR> We need to discover more content about a specific niche market.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, if Google doesn't turn up much about your niche market, maybe you have a great opportunity. The fact that it's _hard_ to get info about these people and what they need means that market is yours if you do the leg-work (or phone-work).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For me its all about keywords. To start with some phrase that captures the essence. Then to move on to the peripheries of the subject. Then to bring in the context within which I search for that topic. By that time I have usually found what I want...

</comment><comment><USER7> I assume you are already using boolean searches but if you aren't...</comment>