Test results for Knights Landing - <AUTHOR> http://agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=761 <comment><USER2> Agner says that he sees no point in hyperthreading. Then he also complains that most AVX512 operations have a latency of 2 clock cycles.

Those two, I think, go hand in hand: the point is not using unused execution resources with the additional hyperthreads (thus the decode limitation), but using the other threads to fill the pipeline bubbles created by the higher latency instructions, a-la barrel processor.

edit: this of course works as KNL is aimed at throughput jobs, not anything latency sensitive.

<comment><USER3> This is correct, it is not possible to get peak IPC without using all the hyperthreads, by design. It is not a CPU even though it uses a CPU's ISA, so treating it as a CPU for optimization purposes is a mistake.

The advantage of its microarchitecture is that if you use the hyperthreads correctly, it will run a broad range of code at close to the theoretical IPC of the silicon without too much code effort (if you understand the model). This is in contrast to CPUs, which rarely get close to their theoretical IPC no matter what you do, or GPUs, which can only run a very narrow range of codes at close to theoretical IPC. In principle it is extremely efficient in terms of operation throughput, and it isn't sensitive to what those operations are, but it requires a large number of independent operations to be in flight to do its magic hence all the hypertheads.

While the architecture explicitly uses latency-hiding to get throughput, it is mostly about latency-hiding at the sub-microsecond level. As a practical matter, it shouldn't affect the perceived latency of most real-world software.

<comment><USER4> I've no idea in what way KNL isn't a CPU, or how optimizing for it is fundamentally different, from running one in an HPC setting. For vectorized floating point code of the sort for which we're particularly interested in these things (e.g. DGEMM), you get peak performance from a single thread/core.

The design is supposed to be "balanced", and it does appear to do a reasonable job of that for the sort of code that uses the bulk of the time on our system. In some cases, Broadwell will do substantially better, of course. I don't have URLs for performance examples to hand.

People mostly seem to be ignoring the potentially important additions in KNL -- the memory system and the built-in interconnect (though I don't know if the latter is available yet). Also the large core count should help by keeping more MPI communication local. I don't know of any relevant results for multi- node jobs, but 64 cores covers a fair number of the HPC jobs I see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone with pull at Intel is reading, let me say this:

It strikes me as insane that you are not making it easier for Agner to get early access to your hardware. He's writing fabulous manuals for free that fill the gaps in the official sources. His work helps more programmers to get the most out of your hardware than just about anything else available. You should be throwing money at him to keep him doing this, or at least showering him offers of free pre-release hardware. But instead you are depending on his generosity and leaving it to chance whether he eventually finds a machine to test on.

Why?

<comment><USER6> I'm going to assume it's because Intel don't value the community surrounding their products very well. at least, the ones that append to their work in a way.

a lot of companies tend towards that behavior. a lot of single developers tend towards that behavior. I don't like it because it represents a kind of destructive egotism.

hopefully that's not what it is and it's just Intel not thinking too hard.

<comment><USER7> Well, it's been a few years since I worked at Intel, but I'm guessing it's just a misalignment of incentives. It's not that some people inside Intel don't realize who their friends are, it's just that those who do realize who their friends are do not get measured on treating their friends well. Nor does their boss, nor their boss's boss. Until their boss's boss _does_ get measured on how well they treat Intel's friends. Then the friends get smothered in a bunch of distracting attention.

You get what you measure for. Intel measures a lot. Intel fails to measure some important things.

The same is probably true of any company with hyper-focused management. Maybe even your startup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems to me Intel is placing their bet on the compiler doing the lion's share of the work here -- and where hand optimization is needed, another bet that having a consistent instruction set across their big Xeon cores and these MIC devices will make things easier for developers?

<comment><USER2> Actually the whole masking and scatter-gather in AVX512 is to simplify the job of the compiler by pretty much allowing any loop to be vectorized relatively trivially.

It doesn't really require any new compiler breakthrough, as it is pretty much what all the GPU compilers (i.e. cuda) have been doing for a while already.

<comment><USER9> Not to mention scatter-gather and masking in Cray's vector processors. You do still need dependency understanding in the compiler, but that's pretty easy now compared to the late 1970s.</comment></comment></comment>


FreeNAS Hard Drive Troubleshooting Guide - <AUTHOR> https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hard-drive-troubleshooting-guide.17/ <comment><USER2> This sort of thing does not belong on a forum. It belongs in a wiki or official documenation.

It is a fantastic guide, as I have always been hesitant to trust the "passed" of the SMART test.

<comment><USER3> > It is a fantastic guide, as I have always been hesitant to trust the > "passed" of the SMART test.

I'd say you're right not to trust such things. A single piece of S.M.A.R.T. data in isolation seldom tells you much. Metrics derived from smartctl along with metrics of how the disk is performing are far more useful. Going further depending on your environment if you have a large enough deployment of a particular drive you may also be able to infer other drive failure characteristics.

<comment><USER4> I would agree with this. I hadn't taken the time to read the man for smartctl and understand the output from smartctl -a until I saw this article, and I'm glad I now have. Since I work with a lot of clients that do all on-premise virtualization, it's helpful to be able to quickly get an idea of where a disk is at as far as SMART is concerned. Most of the vendor tools leave a lot to be desired, IMO, or have inconsistent metrics, so it's nice to just be able to point straight at what the source data from the attributes says.</comment></comment></comment>


Lonely Planet Guides for 13 european cities free in App store (until tomorrow) - <AUTHOR> http://inside-digital.blog.lonelyplanet.com/2010/04/19/lp-volcano-rescue/

<comment><USER2> The LP guides on iPhone are not good. They consist of the guidebook content shoved into a hard-to-navigate app.

<comment><USER3> I downloaded the Berlin guide, and the text is in need of serious editing.

* There are entries in the index with no corresponding content.

* The timeline is in a jumbled order.

* Anecdotes and descriptions are repeated in multiple places.

* The same paragraph appears twice in the introduction.

<comment><USER4> At least the dos and don'ts in the Berlin guide are good for some (I would guess unintentional) humor. Under don'ts: "Talk about WWII with a victor's mentality." Fans of Fawlty Towers[1]? :)

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xnNhzgcWTk&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xnNhzgcWTk&feature=related)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Standard offer: if anyone happens by Padova, you can get the davidw guide to the city for free, with a "spritz" thrown in.

<comment><USER6> You should probably clarify the spritz part, I wouldn't want some kinky Dutchman showing up at your doorstep and expecting something entirely different :)

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spritz_%28alcoholic_beverage%29>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you don't have an iPhone but a recent Nokia instead, you can get Lonely Planet guides as part of the free Ovi Maps navigation package.

<http://maps.nokia.com/ovi-services-and-apps/ovi-maps>

</comment><comment><USER8> Never felt the need for one of these guides. I think its much more fun to just show up in a city and get completely lost. If I need some tourist action then I just get to talking to a local in a cafe or bar, and ask for recommendations. Not knowing your way and not knowing every detail in advance is much more rewarding when you discover them on your own.

</comment><comment><USER9> Very nice move for stranded travelers and very good marketing move, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER10> The user reviews of the apps are quite bad...

<comment><USER11> They might be worth free.</comment></comment>


Review my startup: ThatHigh.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.thathigh.com

<comment><USER2> I don't know about anybody else, but it's definitely not my kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Haha, awesome! I already posted.</comment>


UBI, Automation, and Plutocracy = Dystopia - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/universal-basic-income-automation-plutocracy-dystopia-efc14f526037 <comment><USER2> This is exactly why I'm against UBI: As more and more people get UBI, we will have more generations of people dependent on the government for all of their needs.

This also means they have control over large portions of the population, directly funded by the billionaires.</comment>


The Onion Futures Act - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act <comment><USER2> "In the 2000s (decade), onion prices were significantly more volatile than corn or oil prices. This volatility led the son of a farmer who initially lobbied for the ban to advocate a return to onion futures trading."

This is the important part -- ag futures are insurance for farmers. You don't have to get it, but it limits your downside when you do, which is extremely important in low-margin, capital-intensive industries like agriculture. Banning the insurance may prevent one-off manipulations and limit the upside captured by speculators, but it also makes the industry much more dangerous, particularly for smaller players.

<comment><USER3> Yep, for a decent explanation of hedging ISU has a page [https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a2-60.html](https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a2-60.html)

Note the futures market requirement for hedging.

<comment><USER4> Work in energy and commodity trading. This is probably one of the best explanations to what is at best a very confusing concept. Thanks for posting

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Planet Money podcast a covered this topic a few months ago:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/episode-657-the- tale-of-the-onion-king)

<comment><USER6> Such a good episode!

Planet Money is so good that I've worked my way through 10 years of back- episodes over the last year or so, it's one of few podcasts which is worth doing that.

<comment><USER7> Try Freakonomics if you haven't already. I did the full back catalog on both.

<comment><USER8> At the risk of derailing things and spiraling into off-topic chatter... is anyone else really bothered by the background music on the Freakonomics podcast? They seem to use the same tracks every episode. Ten years ago that wasn't particularly grating, but as production values in podcasting have gone up listening now I feel like I'm hearing a marketing video thrown together on fiverr.

<comment><USER9> I'm bothered by the fact that they have background music at all. I listen to a lot of BBC podcasts and none of them have background music. Only a few use music at all, mostly as a kind of punctuation and emphasis for dramatic parts.

I find most podcasts that I have tried that originate in the US unlistenable because of the background music.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The other notorious carve-out is box office futures. Read more about the ban here: [https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/11/15/18091620/box- off...](https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/11/15/18091620/box-office- futures-dodd-frank-mpaa-recession)

<comment><USER7> Interesting! I'd never heard of this. It look like their arguments against it are about the same as the arguments against variable pricing for movies -- the price would reflect overall sentiment and influence the viewership. Why would you go see a movie that is only $1. Clearly no one else wants to see it. In the same vein, why would you see a movie with a bunch of shorts on it?

<comment><USER10> >...why would you see a movie with a bunch of shorts on it?

If you were long, among other reasons.

<comment><USER11> For sufficiently bad movies, you might get _paid_ to watch them by the people betting on their success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> as an indian, this bit was particularly fascinating:

> The bill was unpopular among traders, some of whom argued that onion > shortages were not a crucial issue since they were used as a condiment > rather than a staple food.

in india, onions are so vital a staple that the onion price is a major economic index. see [https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/commodities/new...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/commodities/news/onion- index-falls-by-11/articleshow/65653094.cms) for instance.

<comment><USER13> Onions are pretty fundamental to Western cooking as well, but they're not a _staple_ in the sense that people will starve if they're unavailable, the way potatoes or wheat are.

<comment> ryan-allen I've always thought staples were the bulk of the energy content in cultures, i.e. rice, bread from wheat/corn/etc, potatoes. I checked anyway, there's a bunch more I hadn't considered!

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

<comment><USER14> Yes, but when you get your vitamins from one main vegetable, it can be a public health problem if a moth eats the whole crop several years in a row. NIGERIA has been limping along since 2016.

#TomatoEbola

[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/05/26/4795176...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/05/26/479517680/a-moth- nicknamed-tomato-ebola-ravages-nigerias-tomatoes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another interesting topic in the derivatives markets: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_derivative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_derivative).

Basically you buy futures or options on the temperature, rainfall, and cloud cover. Super interesting!

<comment> ryan-allen This is an actual thing??!

<comment><USER16> If you don't understand it, why have you got an opinion of it ?

<comment> ryan-allen I don't have an opinion of it! I did search on the topic and found that it is indeed a thing, and the point of it is for farmers to hedge against bad weather. I don't understand it completely but it does seem to make sense in terms of stability. My ??! came across as indignant but it was honest! I watched a Khan video about how options improve stability also, it seems counter-intuitive but my grasp so far is that these instruments are good for stability and stability is important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >This led to the emergence of new leadership who pioneered a different strategy, expanding the exchange's traded products to include futures contracts on pork bellies and frozen concentrate orange juice

...and we all know what happened to the FCOJ market in 1983.

<comment><USER13> If this didn't ring a bell: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mennonite joke: "Many young Mennonites are surprised to learn how many recipes contain only onions and fat."

Onions are important.

</comment><comment><USER19> There seems to have been some wider failures in the market here. The article states that prices rose elsewhere, whilst crashing in Chicago. Why did no one arbitrage. Why did the farmers feel pressured to buy the oversupply _. Cornering the market like this /shouldn't/ have worked.

_I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't some law somewhere banning primary producers buying their own product. Think about a mine buying in raw ore and then selling it, could make the mine look more successful than I actually was. Considering investment by the elite before the 19th century would have been direct into these kinds of operations, I'm surprised enough weren't burned to push for a law change.

<comment><USER20> How do you differentiate between a producer and a consumer? What if a mine is bought by a vertically integrated company that both mines the ore and then processes is as well - and because of, say, some unpredicted difficulties in different parts of it business, has sometimes buy additional ore (to keep smelters running), and sometimes has to sell it because it mined too much?

<comment><USER19> How do you differentiate between a patent troll and a company just trying to protect its IP? You do make a good point though.

I'm not suggesting the legislation would be a good idea, certainly not in the modern day. It just occurred to me that this would be an indicator of fraud, and from what I know about the history of publicly traded companies and the class of people who were investing in companies etc, I'm surprised this wasn't a law.

The article states that traders thought there was a glut because the onions were shipped out and back in again, in the 1950s. It would have been even easier 50-100 years earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> On a side note, I hovered the cursor over "Onion" and was surprised to find out it's classified as a fruit.

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

<comment><USER22> "Intelligence is knowing tomatoes are a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put them in your fruit salad"

<comment><USER23> Unless you are talking botany, calling a tomato a fruit is falling for the fallacy of equivocation and too many people do this and have the pretension that they are being smart. The word "fruit" has multiple definitions, a tomato is a fruit by definition 1, but not a fruit by definition 2.

What most people understand by the word fruit is definition 2.

<comment><USER24> What's definition 2?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So I already knew about this from before, but one thing I never understood was instead of banning it outright, why not just put in a rule that says your futures are invalid if you control X percent of the underlying asset?

<comment><USER25> A requirement like that incentivizes people to find a way to work around it and requires enforcers to be able to prove someone did indeed own X percent. It also makes it harder to pursue cabals that collectively corner a market without any entity involved being over the threshold.

In many ways, it's easier enforcement-wise to just ban the thing, especially if you don't think it's actually important to have in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> You have to wonder why the lawmakers didn't use the same logic on all other products. Or at least ags.

Corners happened again later, famously on silver with the Hunt brothers.

<comment><USER3> Because most ags, particularly the farmers themselves, started hedging their own crops to make sure they had some predictability. Futures are an important tool these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Someone listed to NPR's Planet Money Onion King episode

[https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...](https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=448718171)

</comment><comment><USER28> Laws should have an expiration date. Otherwise in 100 years there will be 1 million laws.

<comment> time-domain0 Laws need diffs and refactoring.

<comment><USER29> I'd like unit tests too. Done in TDD fashion by the creators of the law, not the ad-hoc edge case finding of the precedent system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This feels like something Rand Paul would dig up. It's pretty much the ultimate example of stupid, meaningless regulation. Gotta protect that crucial onion market. Definitely an enumerated power.

</comment><comment><USER31> Check out Vincent Kosuga's Wikipedia page. Very interesting dude

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

</comment><comment><USER32> Man I thought that guy hawking onion futures on BART seemed sort of sketchy.

</comment><comment><USER33> Who else initially thought this was going to be about TOR?

<comment> time-domain0 I was thinking The Onion was being banned because it was predicting the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> All markets are free, but some markets are freer than others.</comment>


PDF Libraries - <AUTHOR>

My friend and I are building Campaign Compass (www.campaigncompass.com), a simple way to comply with political campaign regulations.  We are trying to figure out the best way to autofill a single PDF page.  This page might need to be copied n times and filled n times with unique data.  We are writing this in Python.<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated!! <comment><USER2> Report lab will give you the low level tools you need to write out a pdf page, overlaid over an existing background.</comment>


How Apple hides the iPad's dirty little secret with an optical illusion - <AUTHOR> http://matchstrike.net/strikepad/2010/01/how-apple-hides-the-ipads-dirty-little-secret-with-an-optical-illusion/

<comment><USER2> No secret.

When I saw it, I thought "Oh, they're going back to a 4:3 screen. How nice."

Widescreen displays make it easy for panel manufacturers to skimp on resolution while keeping the same diagonal size.

<comment><USER3> I don't get the attraction of the 16:9 thing for TVs, either.

In my family room I've got a limited amount of horizontal space (barring replace a $1500 piece of furniture as well). Switching to HD will really just mean that I have a smaller picture, because with a fixed horizontal measurement I can only make the vertical measurement smaller to fit the aspect ratio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The site is down. Does anyone have a mirror or a summary?

<comment> aka- google cache: [http://220.127.116.11/search?q=cache:matchstrike.net/strikepad...](http://220.127.116.11/search?q=cache:matchstrike.net/strikepad/2010/01/how- apple-hides-the-ipads-dirty-little-secret-with-an-optical-illusion/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure what you're saying about Apple's presentation. There seems to be enough horizontal, straight-facing images on their iPad pages. <http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/>

</comment><comment><USER6> I've always thought wide screen was strange. Didn't it originally come from projecting from two movie cameras side by side ? It's terrible for closeups in movies. It seems to me the human eye 'viewport' is somewhere around 4:3

<comment><USER7> I've always assumed that widescreen was adopted because it's a convenient format for theaters: theater rooms are easily far wider than they are high. So it's a convenient way to get a larger image, in a room that is not _too_ excessively high.</comment></comment>


Welcome Peter - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-peter <comment><USER2> Just finished reading Zero to One for a second-time, and it was interesting to see that Peter Thiel's contrarian approach to investing in startups ("What valuable company is nobody building") is very similar to PG's thesis that "all good ideas look like bad ideas to begin with (black swan investing) [0]

It will be even more interesting to see if their combined insights and approach can increase their chances of identifying these rare black swans.

Regardless, this has to be among the most formidable grouping of startup talent and brains in the valley.

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html)

<comment><USER3> I'd still love to hear Peter Thiel and PG duke it out/reconcile the "choose an idea that avoids competition at all costs" vs. "don't worry about competition at all" messages.

<comment><USER4> You could look at them as two sides of the same perspective: Paul is saying basically that competition doesn't exist because if you focus on the customer need enough it ensures uniqueness, and Peter is saying don't copy what someone else has done, be unique.

<comment><USER5> Focusing on the customer enough does not ensure uniqueness. It is very possible to be in a market where customers needs are satisfied.

<comment><USER6> Zappos?

<comment><USER5> Zappos is not unique. They don't have a monopoly on anything and ultimately sold out to Amazon probably because there wasn't a way to grow much beyond their market of people who pay premiums on everything to get easier returns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thiel joining makes YC look like the 1992 Olympics "Dream Team" compared to all of the other accelerators.

<comment><USER8> Taking a contrarian viewpoint. Does the convergence of all talent into one team actually reduce the innovation in the startup ecosystem. Similar to your sports analogy, the best games result when multiple talented teams fight it out. If all startups that become big are YC-funded, then we might see just the YC-influenced style of running a company whereas other models may not see the light of the day.

<comment><USER9> That's because sports are inherently competitive endeavors. This isn't necessarily true of startup investing.

<comment><USER10> What? From my experience startup investing is ruthlessly competitive. Every VC backed startup I have worked at had competitors funded by other VCs.

<comment><USER9> But it's not competitive in the same way sports are. If you're a basketball team, you only succeed by beating other basketball teams. If you're an investor, beating other investors isn't the definition of your job. It might happen incidentally, but not by definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The world would benefit much more from him starting a worthy alternative to YC. Few others are in a position to do so. He probably thinks there would be no profit in competing against what he sees as YC's monopoly.

<comment><USER12> Techstars seems to be quietly doing well by doing their own thing, which includes a surprising amount of geographic diversity.

And of course, for _some_ kinds of businesses, one of the real competitors to seed funding is bootstrapping.

<comment><USER13> I'd like to see an YC competitor that focuses much more on Europe with a focus on Africa as well.

<comment><USER12> Europe is tough for a lot of reasons. I think Techstars has at least London, maybe Berlin? Each country tends to have their own stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "the founders of those companies will generally tell you he has been their best source"

Honest question: if a company receives investment from Peter Thiel, do the founders have any choice but to express the opinion above?

<comment><USER15> _> if a company receives investment from Peter Thiel, do the founders have any choice but to express the opinion above?_

They could choose to say nothing (and often do about lesser investors).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The idea that a startup's end game should be to "build a monopoly" is one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, _Zero to One._

This move just deepens YC's monopoly in its domain, as sama would say, "in the Peter Thiel sense."

<comment><USER17> > _one of the most profound insights in Thiel 's excellent book, Zero to One._

Which was an insight in _Blue Ocean Strategy_ (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005).

And before that, if you squint, in _Competitive Strategy_ (Porter, 1980) and _Competitive Advantage_ (Porter, 1980).

And the B-school theorists basically got their ideas by peeking over the fence of the Economics dept at how monopolies are formed and abuse their power and saying "hey, let's teach that to our students".

<comment><USER18> And before that, Morgan, Rockefeller, etc.

And before that, George(s), Charles, Henry, James, Elizabeth, Kahn, Alexander, etc, etc.

<comment><USER19> Those were a different kind of monopoly - Rockefeller bought up a bunch of companies inp N already big oil market.

Thiel suggests becoming a monopoly in a small market and vertically integrating

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As time goes on, YC will continue to attract the best people in the valley (both founders and investors). It's a talent singularity.

<comment><USER21> It's becoming a powerhouse and that usually causes problem in the long run if the chemistry isn't present. Or say the need to be hungry enough to attain goals (just like a strong sports team losing against a lower tier team, aka the underdog).

Yes, surrounding yourself with smart people is great, but surrounding yourself with hungry people is another.

Otherwise, good luck and more success to YC!

<comment><USER22> Great advice. A well fed person can't understand a hungry one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wolf in the hen house? I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I perceive a significant contrast in cultures and philosophies between PT and YC.

<comment><USER24> Not really. Sam Altman and Thiel have been friends for a while, and share a significant amount of startup philosophy.

And YC is roughly a representation of Sam Altman's philosophy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I hope Peter encourages start-ups in longevity and nootropics.

Or just nootropics. If there's more smart people then additional anti-ageing tech will follow—since all arguments against said tech are fallacious; even if they seem reasonable prima facie!

<comment><USER26> Nootropics user here. I would love for this field to go from amateur hobbyists to something more organized. The difficult part remains quantifying results

<comment><USER25> Testing substances on _healthy_ humans is a big deal. At the moment nootropics are used only in disease models.

Also, the creation of nootropics which offer greater upgrades to cognition should be a priority. There have been a few promising chemical such as PRL-8-53[0], but when people have tried such chemicals on themselves they haven't lived up to their promise.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRL-8-53](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRL-8-53)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's no way any accelerator can be competitive against YC if Peter Thiel is going to be doing office hours

<comment><USER28> this is not true. an accelerator can do earlier (before team or product or idea); wider (fund literally anyone who can write five pages in English in a timed setting about their idea); lower (take 0.075% for $2k); faster (an SaaS app that wires you a check within 24 hours, after a human lawyer verifies your details and contract); riskier (billion dollar ideas that don't _even_ have the research paper worked out - like a thesis proposal to a professor, only you're a company); insaner (fund things that are literally insane and would make any investor blush to mention it to another investor), and so forth.

It's not hard to be competitive with YC. The thing is, nobody is even trying to be.

<comment><USER29> All those are valid. One you forgot: YC, like nearly all other accelerators, is implicitly age-ist.

Note that I said implicitly. There is no explicit age discrimination that I am aware of, but the entire program is structured in a way that makes it horribly impractical for anyone who isn't a bachelor/bachelorette and childless. You must move to the Bay Area, put in family-unfriendly hours, and live on a quantity of money that would make it impossible to live in the Bay Area with a family (assuming you don't have a lot of savings, a trust, or a high-earning spouse). It just won't work for a huge majority of older people or people with families.

The implicit assumption is that all the best talent and ideas can be found among those who pass this implicit filter function. Anyone over 25-30 or who has children is "washed up."

... which creates room for an accelerator to test that assumption. What if -- gasp -- people who have been doing this stuff for a long time are actually better at it?

But as you say, nobody is even really trying to compete with YC within their own segment let alone exploring alternative modalities.

Edit: another one would be to question the assumption that sole founders are intrinsically doomed. They are certainly at a disadvantage, but that'd create an interesting niche for an accelerator that helped them to compensate for their disadvantages if they otherwise had really great skills and ideas.

<comment><USER30> I disagree. I have 4 kids, I have been married for 15 and my co-founder had a 3 months old when we did YC. And we are from Portugal, so we were away from our families when we went through YC. It was hard and it required sacrifice, but it was certainly worth it and YC was super supportive. Our lives, and the lives of our kids are much better for it.

<comment><USER31> You say you disagree, but your experience doesn't support that.

"It was hard and it required sacrifice." because of the implicit bias brought up by the GP. For someone in their mid twenties, no relationship or dependents, moving for 3 months is no big deal. Good, even.

<comment><USER32> Yes, it's easier to start a company and take risks when the only person you have to worry about is yourself. This is the case in anything you do whether it's starting a company, traveling, trying to become a professional basketball player, etc. Are you suggesting YC help someone take care of their kids?

<comment><USER31> > Are you suggesting YC help someone take care of their kids?

No, how did you get that? I'm also not suggesting they shouldn't. It's just not at all what I was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Peter won't invest in any companies while they're in YC or for 3 months after they present at Demo Day (this will apply to Peter's investment entities as well), which should eliminate any unfair advantage."

I wonder if having Peter as an investor is a strong enough incentive that if they knew he liked them, a company would change their behavior for the 3 months after demo day.

<comment><USER34> I would change a lot of my behaviors for an investment from Peter

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Thiel's addition makes YC into a monopoly of sorts. Which is inline with Thiel's philosophy.

I wonder how much of that thinking was involved in the decision making on both sides.

</comment><comment><USER36> While I found Thiel's recent work (Zero to One) to be extremely interesting, I am skeptical about a fair portion of it. I am much more inclined to agree with the claims in PG's startup essays, which seem to have been the cornerstone principles of YC.

Am I to that assume all of YC is adopting Thiel's beliefs as well? To be clear, I'm not saying both views are mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER37> If everyone agreed with Thiel's approach then it could only be described as obvious. The fact that people disagree with him is a good thing. The rational thing to do is test it. If YC adopts his approach then that will be a significant sample..

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> What is a part-time partner and how does it differ from a full-time one? Do they get carry?

</comment><comment><USER39> Thiel joining forces with YC, and Musk with Google Ventures... Clash of the titans!

<comment><USER24> I wouldn't say that Musk is joining forces with Google Ventures.

Musk has no involvement with GV and SpaceX raised from Google Inc., not Google Ventures.

<comment><USER39> Yeah well, I should have said "Google". Also, don't forget about the SolarCity thing... [https://gigaom.com/2015/02/26/google-solarcity-partner- on-75...](https://gigaom.com/2015/02/26/google-solarcity-partner-on-750m-fund- for-rooftop-solar/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I found a top post called "Welcome Peter" to be jarring and eerie... :-)

<comment><USER41> Yeah, I thought I had good news or at least a new personalized welcome system on HN ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This addition iconifies the way the Valley's power structure has been changing over the last few years.

Substantially more (reputation wise) powerful now than 5 years ago:

\- Peter Thiel (and Founders Fund)

\- Y Combinator

\- Joe Lonsdale

\- Keith Rabois

And that whole crew. The PayPal mafia (and @sama) are the new tier one.

</comment><comment><USER42> > _(now 10!)_

Read that as a factorial and giggled.

</comment><comment><USER43> well palantir, I guess someone's gotta con the Taxpayers out of their freedom AND money

</comment><comment><USER44> I guess the next addition will be Nassim Nicholas Taleb!

</comment><comment><USER45> Diversity is good. When people start flocking together confirmation bias changes, so I'd assume this is not such a good thing TBH.

</comment><comment><USER46> Wow Wow Wow!!!!

To take the basketball analogy further, is like the NBA champions getting a hold of the first pick in the draft lottery.

</comment><comment><USER47> Applications are still open :)

</comment><comment><USER48> This is awesome for YC. Will he be reviewing applications?

</comment><comment><USER49> Oh, Hi Peter! So how would you solve mortality? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9149186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9149186)

</comment><comment><USER50> If you can't beat them, join them.

</comment><comment><USER51> Hello Peter!

</comment><comment><USER52> Congrats YC!

</comment><comment><USER53> Why did Mr. Thiel join YC?

</comment><comment><USER13> Not bad. As long as you don't also bring Andreessen. I can't forgive him for what he did to Oculus. Could you bring Mark Cuban on board, too? That would be great.

<comment><USER54> Here I am, thinking Thiel and Andreesen were already affiliated with YCombinator.

I have been a bad fan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> And so the YC behemoth grows. Congrats, I look forward to being lectured many times about needing secrets and monopolies.

And focusing not on being the first product to market, but the last.

Did I miss any Thiel-isms?

<comment><USER56> Don't go to college.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is great news!

</comment><comment><USER59> Peter: Are you reading this thread?

<comment><USER41> Yep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I can't help but think how this reflects on YC's previous words in regard to diversity in the tech industry. The obvious snark involves the word "myth" or expanding YC's diversity to include people on record as opposing it, but my intent is not to express snark. No surprise when money trumps the need for explanation. I guess being a billionaire means never having to say you're sorry.

Good luck.

</comment><comment> X-combinator Omigosh! Congratulations.

</comment><comment><USER61> Peter Thiel is a political extremist, and I don't like a lot of his views at all. My point of view is that this is bad for YCombinator, and that this is a bit of a shame.

<comment><USER62> "Political extremist" is an empty ad-hominem --- please point out specifically what views of his are so distasteful.

<comment><USER63> "Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."

"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron."

<comment><USER64> Those sound pretty damning to me. Especially coming from a billionaire.

<comment><USER65> Which part of his statement is inaccurate?

<comment><USER64> I think making the claim that democracy and "freedom" aren't compatible is comedic at best. "Freedom" is an incredibly nebulous concept and it's no secret that we have AND should have laws that restrict behaviors like say murder, or rape. What he really means to say is "democracy is a threat to the things I want to do", and when it's coming from someone who's a member of the ultraelite, well, then... maybe it should threaten what you do. Democracy was created so THAT the masses could overpower the special interests of the elites.

<comment><USER65> The fact that freedom is a nebulous concept makes his claim nebulous, not comedic.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


There must be more to this - <AUTHOR> This is a story about my life so far and why I want to change things.
I'm a Father of two with a regular 9-5 job. My daily routine is not unique in anyway. Wake up, head over to the gym, shower, head back home, get the kids ready for school and leave the house for work. Standard right?
My Wife on the other hand works 9-5 but often the shifts are 12+ hours because of deadlines, constraints, priorities. This has really begun to bother me. I see my wife tired, mentally exhausted and almost like she's been defeated.
Our children need mom and dad, want to play, explore and laugh with us. But, sometimes it's hard to muster the energy when work has taken its toll on you all day. How unfair is that for the kids? They expect our love, attention and company, it's so hard when they don't get that time or emotional support. This really has been eating away at me for sometime.
I keep hearing about work life balance but in our case work seems to control the pendulum weighing down on the work side of things more often than not.
So it got me thinking… Why are we subjecting ourselves to this? Why can't we create and achieve financial freedom? I am not referring to getting rich but replace our salaries over time so we can be there for our kids. The time we have is so limited I really want to spend more of it as a family. This has motivated me to really push on, evev when things aren't easy.
I'm not sure where this will lead me, but I'm determined to make this work. Coming up with ideas, validating those ideas, and making something to solve my own and others problems. I'm not sure what they will be or look like, but I'd like to program it myself and work with my wife to provide value to those who seek it.
This post is my initial stamp and will serve as a reminder and keep me motivated to continue on with this this task. I hope this has inspired others to act as we can only control our destiny if we act for it. <comment><USER2> I really like the honest description of where you stand, and the way you value raising your family is commendable. But at the risk of being a bit contrarian, maybe you want to do more than raise a family?

Raising a family is a wonderful endeavor and an important part of life, but it's just one part of life. Most people work at least 40 hours a week, that's a huge part of their existence. Finding employment or activity that you're proud of and inspired by can take those 40 hrs/week from drudgery to inspiration.

I don't want to insert my own values for your own, but maybe consider optimizing your work life for yourself, and raising a family may come with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I appreciate your view on this. Im really thinking to create or start a business myself. Now, I know that may be contrary to what I mentioned above, the amount of time needed to pursue this goal, meaning less time working more time at home. But, I believe I could achieve that or at least balance it in a way that works for me. I think the best fit at least from my ignorance is some type of SaaS. I can control time, I'm passionate about solving problems and programming in general. I just need to commit to an idea and go for it. I know that most likely the SaaS wouldn't be the end all be all, but at least it's a start. What are your thoughts on this?

<comment><USER2> > Im really thinking to create or start a business myself. ... I think the > best fit at least from my ignorance is some type of SaaS. ... What are your > thoughts on this?

It's a great idea. Starting a business will open you up to a whole world of new skills. As a programmer, you can probably start something with zero capital, just your free time, so the risks can be generally low. To make it successful, it will eventually become all-consuming, but it doesn't have to be at the start.

I've started two SaaS businesses, one successful, one not, and looking back I still think the most gratifying moment is going from $0 in revenue to $1. Doing that still takes many nights and weekends, but you can still psychologically treat it like a hobby. The emotionally hard part comes after that first dollar, although you should just cross that bridge when you get there.

Happy to chat more about this offline if you're really interested, feel free to lookup my profile and email me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, thank you very much. I will send you an email at some point or another

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, im in the same situation and heres how Ive been managing so far. I downgraded everything in my life except for my family who take absolute priority. I live in a smaller apt that i can afford, we live in a safe neighborhood but not the fanciest one i could afford, we dont eat out and dont spend money on things that are not essential, we cook, and do a lot of things that don't cost a lot of mondey. This has helped us save enough money (not a lot..) to be able to work less and spend more time with the kids, especially being outdoors. I find that these years are foundational for the kids and want to be part of it. Possibly things are going to be harder later, not being able to retire early or without a good nest egg, but once again, priorities are family, now.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great to hear. The fact your choosing to live more frugal in order to devote these important years to family. Congrats on that aspect of things. I wish you all the best and thanks for taking the time to respond to this post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi, thanks for the post. I don't know what your personal circumstances are, where you live, how mobile your job and your wife's job are, but: have you considered working remotely and then moving to somewhere that your salary would go further, and thus give you more time to be with your kids?

For example: if you managed to get a remote job making $50,000 USD a year, that's a pretty good living for a family in a small city in Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Czechia, the Balkans, etc. You could work less hours (and have no commute) and your wife might not even have to work at all. Or you could both work part-time.

As I said, it's not as easy as I make it sound, but it's something to consider.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input on this. I haven't given much thought to moving from Canada to abroad. But maybe that's the alternative. It would be a difficult transition for everyone as most of my family is close to me 30 drove tops. Maybe if the situation doesn't improve perhaps that's something I could take into consideration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for posting this. It takes a bit of courage to write what you have. The hardest thing (for me) is to detach mentally/emotionally from the job when you're not there. You've just spent _all day_ in an office, and it's difficult to be truly _present_ when you get home. All I can say is that I struggle with similar issues, and I'm trying to work on setting more firm boundaries between _me_ and _my job_. I wish you and your family the best of luck (and strength) in the coming months.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much. I truly appreciate your comments and support. I agree it's tough to separate between the two but it's something we will work on going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see this in my SO. Her work so fully optimizes its use of her time and energy she's got nothing left at the end of the day and she wakes up early on the weekend with nightmares. Like, it sucks her dry. Which was fine when she was single, but I'm feeling left out more and more often. I think she's seeing it. It's a continuous discussion.

<comment><AUTHOR> There must be sometype of framework she can use to detach from work. Have you tried or suggested meditation, maybe that's a way to calm the brain at least dealing with the nightmares.

<comment><USER6> Yup. Oh, I've tried all sorts of clever things.

Nobody has ever been much motivated by external forces as they are from internal forces. Oh, humans.

Horse to water... and all that.</comment></comment></comment>


Bartek's coding blog: An Extraterrestrial Guide to C++20 Text Formatting - <AUTHOR> https://www.bfilipek.com/2020/02/extra-format-cpp20.html <comment><USER2> Python -style text formatting in C++ :) Have you used the library - {fmt} - before? It's great that after years of effors it's core functionality was placed in the Standard.</comment>


What are the platforms where I can download udemy courses for free? - <AUTHOR> I used to download paid udemy courses for free from one platform, now they too are charging fee. I understand that it isn't a good practice but I can't find such platforms. <comment><USER2> why would you want to pirate these courses, pirating is not good.</comment>


Solar and Wind Power Investors Get More Bang for Their Bucks - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-18/solar-and-wind-power-investors-get-more-bang-for-their-bucks <comment><AUTHOR> "Much of this spending-installation correlation comes from investment in more expensive offshore wind, which generates more power per megawatt than onshore turbines. Also, onshore turbines are more efficient and produce much more power now, on average, than they did 15 years ago. In terms of investment and capacity, it's "spend the same, get the same," but in terms of the cost of power generated, it's "spend the same, get more generated power at a lower cost."

Solar's paradigm is different: "Spend more, get more," then "spend the same, get much, much more."

Solar investment has increased by a factor of 11 since 2004. Solar installations have increased by a factor of 110. Today's solar asset builders invest an order of magnitude more money than they did 15 years ago, and they build far more generation capacity. And, like wind projects, today's solar projects generate significantly more energy than those built 15 years ago."</comment>


For God's Sake, Go Get a Flu Shot - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/for-gods-sake-go-get-a-flu-shot <comment><USER2> This article omits the most important information: 1) which strains are included in this year's vaccine 2) how many of those cases in NY (and nationwide) were from a strain that is included in the vaccine? How many were NOT? 3) does this vary by geography? (I would expect a different frequency on the west coast vs the east coast, for example)

<comment><USER3> It's safe enough, and influenza dangerous enough, that the extent of the match isn't that important.</comment></comment>


A Proposed Origin for SARS-CoV-2 and the Covid-19 Pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-proposed-origin-for-sars-cov-2-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/ <comment><USER2> I find this hypothesis compelling, and this is such a strong write-up.

One part that I'm a bit confused about is around the origin of the furin site. The post has a challenge in explaining it, since it's such a large stretch of nucleic acid. They end up explaining it with the idea that the virus actually pulled it from human lung mRNA but isn't there at least one other very strong possibility?: it was inserted there intentionally in the lab.

It's been a little while since I've done any actual molecular biology in the lab but I have to believe that either direct insertion of an RNA sequence into the viral genome or an indirect method using DNA for the manipulation with subsequent re-insertion into the virus is possible.

I actually appreciate that the post only mentions in passing the possibility of genetic manipulation as they're explanation seems slightly more simple (and certainly less accusatory), just seems like it deserves at least another mention at the end as a logical possibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> They propose that the virus evolved the furin site during infection of the miners. It wasn't pulled from lung mRNA, but evolved due to random mutagenesis. This seems to me to be the weakest part of the whole story. But they argue that this is more plausible than the same thing happening in a pangolin.

<comment><USER2> I should have been more specific with my wording. They are proposing that there was a recombination event which incorporated the human furin cleavage site into the viral RNA. This would be lifting the sequence directly from the human gene product, as I read it.

> It is known from plants that positive-stranded RNA viruses recombine readily > with host mRNAs (Greene and Allison, 1994; Greene and Allison, 1996; Lommel > and Xiong, 1991; Borja et al., 2007). The same evidence base is not > available for positive-stranded animal RNA viruses, (though see Gorbalenya, > 1992) but if plant viruses are a guide then acquisition of its furin site > via recombination with the mRNA which encodes ENaC-a by SARS-CoV-2 is a > strong possibility.

This seems like more of a stretch than direct genetic manipulation in the lab.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that's what they are saying:

"Inside the miners a large tissue was simultaneously infected by a population of poorly-adapted viruses, with each therefore under pressure to adapt. Even if the starting population of virus lacked any diversity, many individual viruses would have acquired mutations independently but only recombination would have allowed these mutations to unite in the same genome. To recombine, viruses must be present in the same cell. In such a situation the particularities of lung tissues become potentially important because the existence of airways (bronchial tubes, etc.) allows partially-adapted viruses from independent viral populations to travel to distal parts of the lung (or even the other lung) and encounter other such partially-adapted viruses and populations. This movement around the lungs would likely have resulted in what amounted to a passaging effect without the need for a researcher to infect new tissues. Indeed, in the Master's thesis the observation is several times made that areas of the lungs of a specific patient would appear to heal even while other parts of the lungs would become infected."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I flagged this because it seems to be hiding its political motivations:

"The media, normally so enamoured of controversy, has largely declined even to debate the possibility of a laboratory escape. Many news sites have simply labelled it a conspiracy theory."

<comment><AUTHOR> Criticising the media's biased coverage of a scientific topic doesn't seem politically motivated to me. The statements you highlight could just be 'true'?</comment></comment>


Yes, We Can Build Industry in Space – And We Should Start Now - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/09/11/yes-we-can-build-industry-in-space-and-we-should-start-now/ <comment><USER2> _More adventurously, he suggests that new communications technology could allow computing to be moved off of the Earth, reducing demand for energy._

Since latency to the moon is more than 2.5 seconds round trip I think the utility of moon based data centers will be marginal. Maybe as off site backup site or big batch processing.</comment>


Show HN: Duologue.me - is a new way to create and publish conversations. - <AUTHOR> http://duologue.me/

<comment><AUTHOR> My weekend project:

<http://duologue.me> is a new way to create and publish conversations. Think of it as a "blogging for two" where you and your friend collaborate to create new content. It would be great to try it with ~50 beta testers at this point. Mostly to see if the idea has legs. See <http://duologue.me/roadmap> for more details. I'm also looking for a couple of people who want to help (RoR engineer and Designer) move this project along. The app is built with Mongo, Rails3 and Heroku.

Please drop me a line at 'zepplock (at) vova.org' if you need more information. You can also invite me (zepplock) on Duologue.me and start a conversation on subjects like RoR, APIs, Russian Literature, Reef fishtanks or whatever ;-)

</comment><comment><USER2> One or more examples would be nice. I wanted to see some, but the tutorial didn't have any and clicking on the Latest forced me to register to see the only one on the list.

(I have a natural resistance to registering, particularly if it doesn't use OpenID, since it usually requires too much time, checking the email and such. I'm glad to see it isn't the case here, but I only found out after I decided to actually do it)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed, here's a good example. I'd call it a first duologue ever ) <http://duologue.me/duologues/4f0248b2661ded0001000007>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone who participated. Especially people trying xss exploits ;0) I'd love to hear more feedback though.</comment>


How Did It Happen? America's Unique Failure to Control the Virus - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/us/united-states-failure-coronavirus.html <comment><USER2> In short: We failed because our country wasn't capable of controlling the virus. We're just not good enough at being a nation right now.

A corrupt system that's been in decline for years has produced an artifact that makes us aware of our decline: a President who is incapable of leading, but got elected anyway because corruption limited both the number and variety of leadership choices.

As our governmental system has declined, it was inevitable that we would eventually encounter some crisis we could not handle, like an aging man that one day discovers he can no longer perform certain activities without injuring himself.

We're probably lucky that the problem that came along wasn't one that would have quickly resulted in death for everyone on the planet. Had we been unlucky enough to have another Cuban missile crisis like situation with Trump to handle it, we might have ended up in a nuclear winter with the majority of humanity dead or dying.

There's no secret as to why we failed to control the virus. The answer is that our government and society have decayed enough that they're not up to the task.

We used to be, and I think a lot of people are surprised by this "sudden" change... but it's not sudden. We've been on this path for decades. The momentum from the post world war II years and the values of the generation that have been in power since the late 60s have masked the problems, but they've been there.

Trump is a symptom of a much larger problem, one that won't be solved quickly or easily. We not only have to undo decades of slow corrosion, but we have to change the government and our society so it doesn't happen again.

Whether we're capable of that in our current state, only time will tell.

<comment><USER3> After 200 plus years, we haven't even controlled the cold or flu. Why should this one be different?

And what country _is_ controlling coronavirus?

<comment><USER4> New Zealand. [https://theconversation.com/100-days-without-covid-19-how- ne...](https://theconversation.com/100-days-without-covid-19-how-new-zealand- got-rid-of-a-virus-that-keeps-spreading-across-the-world-143672)

It required fast, concerted action and a populace willing to comply with significant new temporary policies.

<comment><USER3> And... New Zealand's population is not quite 2% of the US, and it is quite small and able to easily control borders.

Edit: Thanks for responding. When no one else does, I can always count on you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: With all of these news about Rust, is anybody running it in production? - <AUTHOR>

It seems a cool language and I have a lot of C++ in my prototype that I could, possibly, convert to Rust when I do the rewrite. C++ hasn't treated me bad, but I am evaluating the conversion possibility.<p>But is there really any company using the language in live products? <comment><USER2> [https://www.skylight.io](https://www.skylight.io)

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you working at Skylight? Can you share your experience?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> OpenDNS and Skylight are the two big deployments we know of, and there are some smaller ones we've heard rumors of.

We don't encourage it until 1.0, of course...</comment>


4th of July DUI Checkpoint - Search without consent... - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-WMn_zHCVo

<comment><AUTHOR> The best line in the video is at 5:10 where an officer says:

"But he's perfectly innocent and he knows his rights. He knows what the Constitution says." as they continue to search his car.

I don't see how government authorities can expect people to to be law abiding when they themselves are not. They've clearly taken the principle of the ends justify the means.

It's a very sad state for our society.</comment>


US to build two new nuclear power stations - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8518670.stm

<comment><USER2> _"On an issue which affects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we cannot continue to be mired in the same old debates between left and right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs," said President Obama._

Well, that's a little insulting :)

</comment><comment><USER3> They're adding two new AP1000 reactors to an existing site. Each reactor produces 1.1 GW of electricity, reliably, for 60-80 years. While the building cost is large (about the same as wind, on a per-average-megawatt basis) the operating costs are low, and the power will become cheaper than coal over time as the initial investment is paid off.

There's been some misunderstanding about the government's involvement in this, so let me be explicit: this is not a loan, nor a subsidy. This is the government insuring the loan in case the company building the reactors defaults on the loans they got from private investors. Unless disaster strikes, the government will actually make a profit on this without paying a dime.

</comment><comment><USER4> we need 200.

<comment><USER5> 400 would allow us to get off coal completely. That would be a stimulus package I'd support.

<comment><USER6> Each power station usually has multiple units, each unit usually runs at about 2-2.5 GW for a large scale reactor. 400 stations with 2 units apiece would generate 1.75TW assuming about 10% were offlined for maintenance at any one time. Existing nuclear plants already generate a good chunk of power, non-coal sources exist as well.

Currently California's peak energy needs in the summer months tends to be only 50GW or so. That's roughly one sixth of the population of the US. Even if you assume the nation needs 500GW total, that's nowhere near 1.75TW.

In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers?

My numbers show about 75 generating stations with 2 reactors each supplying the power needs for the entire US. This assumes no offlining and only 300GW needed but also calculates based on each reactor supplying 2GW when most of the ones we have in the US supply over that.

(Note: Calculated from a US-centric point of view because the parent post was talking about a theoretical stimulus package and so I'm trying to work the numbers on what my particular nation would need to move its entire energy infrastructure to new nuclear plants.)

(Note the second: It's possible my numbers aren't taking into account tranmission losses, would someone who knows more about power infrastructure than me fill me in on this? I got my 50GW peak summer usage number from the California independent system operator, does that number already factor in transmission losses?)

<comment><USER5> _In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers?_

From Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States)), the US has 104 reactors which produced 19.6% of the electricity we used in 2008.

<comment><USER7> Ah, but all of those 104 reactors are at least 30 years old--if modern reactors aren't significantly more efficient, I'll be sorely disappointed.

<comment><USER3> Even the old technology has been getting more efficient. Those reactors have been producing ever-increasing amounts of electricity for those past 30 years as they upgraded the systems and figured out how to reduce downtime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> that is really excellent news.

</comment><comment><USER9> "... to help build the first US nuclear power stations for 30 years."

Shouldn't that be the first US nuclear power stations in 30 years?</comment>


Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe's Biggest Obstacle - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/06/01/lack-of-entrepreneurial-culture-seen-as-europes-biggest-obstacle/?mod=google_news_blog

<comment><USER2> This is a classic example of "if only more people would be like us, the world would be better!". Sure enough, the experts are all entrepreneurs and investors.

Well, in this particular case, they may very well be right. But things like this really bother me: "traditional engineering-driven approach to business, with its emphasis on perfection, longevity, pride in ingenuity and culture of deep-thinking put the country at a competitive disadvantage in the fast-moving new economy". Really ? That's all he had to say about what made Germany an economic powerhouse on par only with Japan ? Oh, what we need then are more social media experts, I'm sure, to drive value creation through synergistic customer discovery. I'm pretty sure he's beating on a strawman here.

Also, the last piece of candy: 'The so called "poor countries," such as Brazil, have this hunger. They are going to catch up on us.'

And how is that a bad thing ? Good for them.

<comment><USER3> Americans don't like to talk about it, but they should better learn how emulate Europe rather than the opposite. The USA is nowadays more similar to Europe than to new developing economies. While Europe hasn't the high growth it once had, they know how to maintain an economy that retains prosperity for most of its people.

<comment><USER4> In the global race to have the worst economy, Europe (as a whole) currently has a significant edge over the US, although the US is certainly running the race with gusto. There's serious talk of having to break the EU up over the economic crisis it is having. The traditional "US should be more like Europe" rhetoric should be packed away in storage for a while, conditions are not ripe for it.

<comment><USER5> Most of the European problems right now are problems that the US just plain cannot have -- Greece, Spain and Italy running up huge debts because they have the credibility of the eurozone without any of the responsibility.

America's different, we're one country.

Those problems aside, we could do a lot worse than modeling europe, way less gas usage, higher health insurance coverage, 2 months of vacation a year. Sounds a lot more stable to me.

<comment><USER6> > Those problems aside, we could do a lot worse than modeling europe, way less > gas usage, higher health insurance coverage, 2 months of vacation a year. > Sounds a lot more stable to me.

And roughly half the gdp/person of the US.

The US govt already collects about as much (per person) in taxes as European govts. (It collects significantly more than Canada and, iirc, slightly less than France.) Yet, no one would seriously argue that we get anywhere near the same level of benefit for that spending.

As long as the US govt is that inefficient, it's absurd to suggest giving it more money.

<comment><USER5> We should copy some stuff from their tax code, too. As you said, they're not collecting significantly more than us, they just have a way simpler rate. Netherlands was explained to me as "25% up to 100k, 50% on income over that". That's fair, simple and actually a lower rate for the vast majority of people. Our system is a bloated mess in comparison.

Not saying that automatically everything done by Europe is better than everything done in the US.. but mindless rah rah just leads to myopia. Let's steal good ideas where we can.

<comment><USER6> > We should copy some stuff from their tax code, too. As you said, they're not > collecting significantly more than us, they just have a way simpler rate.

Actually, I didn't say anything about how taxes are collected.

However, I will point out that even when the US had significantly higher rates, the feds never managed to collect more than 22% of GDP in taxes and even those two years were "unstable", in that folks adjusted their behavior.

The sustainable maximum appears to be around 21%, and even that isn't possible during a recession.

> Netherlands was explained to me as "25% up to 100k, 50% on income over > that". That's fair, simple and actually a lower rate for the vast majority > of people.

No, it's not a lower rate for "the vast majority". It's actually a significantly higher rate for the vast majority.

Most employed folks in the US don't pay income taxes. They pay SS, which has very progressive payback, so it's actually a good "investment" for folks who don't pay income taxes. They also pay medicare, but again, their benefits outweigh their costs.

So, 25% (up to 100k) would be a huge increase for most Americans. 50% is higher than the current highest marginal rate, so anyone paying it would also see an increase.

I don't remember where the 30% bracket kicks in, but if it's less than 100k, maybe there are some folks who'd pay less under your scheme, but they're not anywhere near a majority.

> Let's steal good ideas where we can.

I agree, but until we "steal" the good ideas related to efficient govt spending, better taxation is a disaster.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, you played the old familiar canard of "I'm going to advocate for the government to do things less efficiently and then bitch about how inefficient they are". Par for the course for republicans.

Personally, I'd be in favor of a simplified tax rate with a flat/progressive system that doesn't have an encyclopedia built into it. You might be in favor of a slightly different version of that non-encyclopedia but we're basically on the same side. Rush Limbaugh is trying to divide us -- who's side is he on?

EDIT: btw, most people with under 100k of income in the US pay significantly more than 25%, closer to 40%. Do you think they should pay more? Or less?

<comment><USER6> > Yeah, you played the old familiar canard of "I'm going to advocate for the > government to do things less efficiently and then bitch about how > inefficient they are".

No, I didn't. I wrote that the US govt should be more efficient.

> btw, most people with under 100k of income in the US pay significantly more > than 25%, closer to 40%.

That's not true. See <http://www.taxbrackets2011.com/> . Singles with AGIs between $83-173k pay 28% marginal. The 25% bracket (for singles) starts at $34k.

No, you don't get to count SS. As I explained, SS is a forced savings plan with a rather good return for folks who don't max out, which happens over $100k. (They're subsidized by folks who do max out.) You can argue medicare, but it's <4%.

<comment><USER5> What? Of course SS and Medicare count. They're taxes. Europeans get pension plans too, and they have universal healthcare, and those services are included in the taxes that europeans pay.

You just argued "If I take the tax rate, and subtract 15%, I get 28%". That's ridiculous.

And, nobody in SS is subsidized by anyone -- those who max out don't pay any more beyond the max.

<comment><USER6> > What? Of course SS and Medicare count. They're taxes.

I pay the City of San Jose for garbage services - is that a tax? Of course not.

SS isn't a tax because the benefits are (roughly) in proportion to what you pay?

> And, nobody in SS is subsidized by anyone -- those who max out don't pay any > more beyond the max.

Do you really misunderstand this or are you just being annoying?

For low-income/low-contribution folks, the ROI for their SS "contributions" is positive. The ROI for high-income/high-contribution folks is negative. The positive return for the low-income folks is the money that the high-income folks lose.

On the off-chance that you think that SS problems can be solved by removing the cap, I'll explain why SS advocates introduced it. They wanted a system that had popular support and didn't encourage organized opposition. For popular support, they wanted to cap payouts. To avoid organized opposition, they wanted roughly proportional payouts.

If you want uncapped contributions, do you want uncapped payouts? If so, you get to explain why Ross Perot gets $300k/year. If not, you get to defend a program that is a significant tax on folks who are very good at fighting taxes.

<comment><USER5> Ok, well go do some accounting on the dutch government, figure what % of their tax take goes to pensions and medical stuff, deduct that from their tax take and you can get back to me with an apples-to-apples comparison. Since those aren't really taxes.

I didn't say anything about uncapping SS. And I know my history, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I was growing up in Germany I remember hearing this exact same complaint about lack of entrepreneurship a good 30 years ago. My dad, who is a solid state physicist, was a kind of cheerleader for modern technology and was exasperated how companies were not adopting and adapting more quickly. His predictions that the economy was going to go down the tubes while the rest of the world pulled away still ring in my ears.

Yet here we are and looking around my neighborhood in Oregon I see VWs, Audi's, Mercedes and Porsches, our dishwasher is a Bosch and any serious Oregonian owns a Stihl chainsaw.

While I agree that a shocking number of young Germans (and likely other Europeans) are looking for the security of a "Beamter" (civil servant) job, there are definite pros to the German system and I think to keep the balance maybe it's not so bad we have countries with different systems.

Here in the USA almost everyone is an amateur at almost everything we do and that breeds excellence from a few but also a lot of shoddy work. In Germany it's the opposite, the general skill level in industry, science and even culture is relatively high but there are few international standouts.

I think software and software entrepreneurship is particularly well suited to the American system.

Interestingly, in my work as an embedded systems engineer there are a lot of German companies offering development tools (Keil and Hitex come to mind) and other specialty hardware. Not everyone has to develop the next Groupon or Facebook, there are a lot of other possibilities.

<comment><USER4> I am reminded of the concept of differential advantage. It's OK for the US to be entrepreneurial and for Germany to have a lot of craft-focused artisans who can take technology and refine it unto the nth degree. The world is richer for having the both.

It's part of the reason I think a lot of people over the decades(/centuries) who call for the US to be more a clone of Europe are calling for a really bad idea; it's more than just OK for there to actually be different types of countries, but they actually support each other and make each side wealthier. Diversity, _real_ diversity involving significant differences, is good.

<comment><AUTHOR> THIS

I think the American system is more for me. But I'm happy there is both. Unfortunately there is also a trend in Germany to become more American.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why does everything need to be just like Silicon Valley? Everything being like Wall Street certainly didn't help either.

I especially laughed at the line that perfectionism and proper engineering are bad for startups. This explains a lot. (Yes, when it comes to selling stuff that doesn't work and you don't need in the first place, Europe has a lot to learn. _Every_ service-based industry does better in the US.)

Meanwhile, the amount of companies founded per year is on a steady rise, so there is a entrepreneurial movement, it's just different. Not saying that either approach is perfect, don't get me wrong. It's just that I don't get those "Europe is worse because it doesn't have companies like Facebook" articles.

Neither Europe nor the US has lots sweat shops with Asian conditions, are we both now hopelessly behind this and should mend our ways?

<comment><USER9> A lack of perfectionism does not mean a lack of quality. There's such a thing as trying to be too perfect and missing out on a market opportunity.

<comment><USER8> Just like the presence of perfectionism and engineering doesn't mean that people are sitting on "unfinished" products for decades. Never mind that the US has some pretty awesome engineering itself and that the average quality of German startup software isn't any better.

Basically, the speaker was just throwing some cliches into the room, whether they fit or not. He might as well have said that Germans don't get anything done because they spend so much time to listen to the Hoff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My favourite company in the world is a German engineering firm called Rohloff. Their motto is "No slogans, just facts" and their business is really just a single product - a beautifully engineered internal gearbox for bicycles called the Speedhub, that costs €1000 and lasts 100,000km.

Rohloff make a product as finely engineered as any swiss watch, but in doing so create an anti-consumerist product. Their product is built to last forever and usually does. While their Japanese, American and Italian competitors battle to create ever more fragile "racing" components and strive for ever increasing levels of built-in obsolescence, Rohloff obstinately refuse to make anything the most durable and reliable product.

If we measure the wellbeing of society purely in terms of GDP, Rohloff are a disaster; But the only way for Rohloff to improve profitability would be for them to throw their customers under the bus. There is nothing left to improve in a Rohloff Speedhub - it is for all practical purposes perfect. Any possible "improvement" would benefit the marketers, not the customer.

I prefer Mercedes and BMW to Cadillac and Lincoln. I would rather see my country emulate Germany than America.

<comment><USER9> I hope Rohloff is aware of the irony that "No slogans, just facts" is a slogan.

While I admire companies who make products that last forever, most people aren't that interested in spending a ton of money on something that will last forever. If you're sure you're going to be using your bike for 70+ years, $1000 isn't a bad investment. If you're like most people, you probably bike once every few months, if that, and the cheap US/Chinese/Japanese products are probably fine.

It's not fair to compare companies that are competing on price with companies that are competing on quality. For most people, "ok" and "cheap" are good enough.

<comment><USER11> > It's not fair to compare companies that are competing on price with > companies that are competing on quality.

For this particular consumer, in the marketplace, it's fair enough :)

And if it's unfair, bad luck.

<comment><USER9> Let me rephrase: it doesn't make any sense to compare a company that's competing on price with a company that's competing on value. They are both filling different niches in the marketplace.

<comment><USER11> Thanks, but I think that just confuses me more. To me, value is directly related to price.

From my perspective it makes sense to compare companies in order that I understand the differences between them. I would have to try hard not to compare them.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be obtuse.

In relation to the point about Rohloff as a metaphor for the Germany vs America emulation, I think the comparison would be quite useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ok, as i'm currently starting my business in austria (that's in europe) i want to add my 2c.

the biggest obstacle is that the government won't go out of your way.

1\. i could start my company now

2\. but it would be stupid, as i would miss out on the "unternehmensgründerförderung" (start up support)

3\. for getting "unternehmensgründerförderung" you have to attend a sh#tload of courses (for about 2 months) which tell you nothing about starting a business, but a lot of "what you have to do so that you don't get into trouble with the government later"

3.1. and they tell you a sh#tload of things about things you have to do to get a 'unternehmensgründungs' grant for your business

3.2. during that period your business is forbidden to earn money

4\. as soon as you start your startup you have at least half a month of work outlined on what you now have to do to please your government

5\. even if your company would just exists for 1 minute, you will get herrases by the government and insurance companies for the next 3 years.

oh, and every time the government discusses that fact that there are not enough new companies, they talk about another 'development program' (a.k.a. grant) which you then get educated about, if you want to or not.

sometimes i think i'm becoming an anarchist, an entrepreneur-anarchist.

<comment><USER13> So, Europe needs less regulation on the low-end of town (small businesses) to increase international competitiveness, and the US needs more regulation on the high-end of town (big business) to decrease corruption and prevent anti- competitive practices.

Would it be fair to say that?

<comment><USER9> Small businesses decrease corruption and anti-competitive practices in large businesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Absolutely spot on. It's not lack of funds or the absence of a proper ecosystem, it's a huge cultural gap.

The whole school system is fundamentally broken. Since elementary school to the very last stages of university education I've been told to study, work hard and eventually, with time, gain access to some big and famous corporate in a responsability position, get a lifelong contract, settle down and enjoy life. That should have been my professional life goal.

Entrpreunership isn't even remotely considered. It's like it was 'none of my business', as companies were somehow a father-son 'inheritance'. Add to that a very entrpreunership-adverse legislation (for an LLC equivalent in Italy you need a 20K deposit upfront and you'll be paying, at the end of the day, more than 50% of your profits in taxes) and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Also, the public opinion seems to have no or little interest in the matter, and the situation looks dreadfully stagnant.

Fortunately, there are sparks of cultural changes lately, especially with the younger folks, but it's a change that won't happen overnight for sure.

<comment><USER15> _Fortunately, there are sparks of cultural changes lately, especially with the younger folks, but it's a change that won't happen overnight for sure._

I would like to contribute my personal data point on this. I'm a student in a smallish Dutch town at a university that's mostly focused on economics/business and medicine.

It feels like there's a considerate entrepreneurial spirit among the students here. Many seem to wish to found a startup and there are some there doesn't seem to be the mentioned aversion against success and making it big. From what I can tell, most of this is (still) just hot air, meaning that people have big ideas but don't dare start working on them. On the other hand, this might also be due to the lack of a bigger engineering or CS department with more people that can actually build something.

Maybe this is the beginning of a change of culture. I wonder if students in bigger tech-universities have similar experiences.

<comment><AUTHOR> My personal data point is also, that most people who are interested in startups, including those who do them, are buisnes guys. And we do have three big tech university here in Munich. I know plenty exceptions but overall this is what I see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Germany's approach, which Mr. Davidson said typically starts with acquiring a deep understanding of the problem before making the decision to act was exactly the opposite of the culture he saw both in his home country of Israel and in America."

They should appreciate different approaches instead of calling them a "problem". It's ridiculous to tell the Germans to become more like America or Israel. The German strategy has its problems and so does America's.

</comment><comment><USER17> > the panel decried Europe's lack of hunger

A somewhat inadvertent turn of phrase that may well be telling you more than expected about the situation in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER18> _. Making money, he said, was not seen as a good thing to do. "The culture is changing, but it will take time."_

There's your marketing problem. If being an entrepreneur was only about making money, I wouldn't want my culture to encourage it either. They should focus less on materialism and more on making a difference and creating jobs.

<comment><USER19> _"They should focus less on materialism and more on making a difference and creating jobs."_

Making a difference? Creating jobs? If I was a business owner (I hope to be someday), the last thing I would be concerned with is job creation. As the old adage goes, "overhead walks on two legs" i.e. wages are a major cost for a business.

My first concern would be positive cash flow, then ramen profitability. Then perhaps getting funded, and only then, job creation.

Making money should the the sole goal of any business, then afterwards you can worry about making a difference, and employing people. Any other focus and you aren't going to make a difference or create jobs, because you will be out of business.

EDIT: amended last sentence

<comment><USER18> I am talking about the marketing (or culture) of entrepreneurship. I.E. what the article is about. Not actual business principles. Spreadsheets and bottom lines aren't going to convince anyone to make the jump.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "...Germany's traditional engineering-driven approach to business, with its emphasis on perfection, longevity, pride in ingenuity and culture of deep- thinking..."

I fail to see how those things are negative. As a matter of fact, I wish more entrepreneurs would adopt this kind of thinking: Being proud of your craft and your product.

Sure, you need to be able to make decisions, but there is also something to be said for making quality products instead of going for execution speed over quality.

Quality-driven thinking is part of what makes Germany one of the largest economies in the world - despite the fact that it is much less populous than other big economies like the US, Japan, and China.

</comment><comment><USER21> I have no comment on whether Europe needs to be more like Silicon Valley, but my gut feeling is that it doesn't. That being said, Europe isn't nearly as friendly to failure as the US is. Bankruptcy laws in the EU are waaaaaay more onerous than they are in the US.

The question of whether this is a chicken and egg problem WRT European culture is up for debate.

tl;dr: Cultures are different. News at 11.

</comment><comment><USER22> The biggest problem is that we dont have "easy money" in europe and there is no real tech hub like the valley around here.

Investors want to know upfront how you plan to make money and phrases like "we will figure this out later" wont help you if you need to raise money.

If this sort of thinking changes maybe we will see more billion dollar companies in europe.

</comment><comment><USER20> I see a lot of "Europe is like this, Europe is like that" comments here... I wish people would realize that in terms of culture and legislation the various European countries are wildly different. The difference between Southern and Northern Europe is massive (think USA - Mexico), and even between countries that are near each other geographically there are quite big differences (think USA - Canada).

Those differences aren't a bad thing in any way and don't mean that we can't be united in some sense - but please just realize that saying that "Europe is like this and that" is like saying "North America is like this and that".

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm an entrepreneur in E.Europe. Biggest obstacle is lack of markets, lack of capital. For most tech products like websites and software, the best (and first) market is the US. I used to think that the Internet can bridge this gap, after all, you don't need physical proximity to sell digital goods, but I was wrong. In most cases you need physical/cultural proximity to build your tech business.

</comment><comment><USER24> One contributing factor here in the Netherlands is a huge lack of the type of investors I read about on this site. If you want to start a business here, there are two options, either go to the bank and get a personal loan with loads of interest, or depend on "triple-F-financing": friends, fools and family.

Only in internet startups that have international appeal do you find a little bit of startup funding, but these investors are hardly ever Dutch firms.

</comment><comment><USER25> Note the rhetoric " ... seen as Europe's Biggest Obstacle": by using the passive and an authoritative tone, the WSJ tries to make it seem that there this idea comes from nowhere, and is a universal truth without being attached to real people politicking to make the world the world into what they want (umm, low taxes and regulation for us, thank you). Making seemingly universal statements is one of the best tricks to hiding partisan interests (and the left does this just as often as the right).

I would bet money that if you gave a poll, more Europeans would want to move AWAY from a "entrepeneurial culture" (whatever that means) than toward it. For the average working Fritz and Hannah it would mean giving up social services, safety, free education, and excellent vacations.

<comment><USER9> Without a healthy economy, social services, safety, free education, and excellent vacations will eventually go away. I think it's a universal truth that everyone wants a good economy, regardless of whether you're a socialist or a capitalist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The criticism of Germany's culture of designing well made products that are an excellent value is a bit odd. Germany's economy has done much better than most others during the Great Depression II, and has avoided the problems with crime, fraud and corruption of the US.

The only reasonable explanation for the article is the author is threatened by Germany's success and hoping to confuse them by writing an article advocating they do dumb things instead.

</comment><comment><USER27> Funny, I worked for two startups in the 90s. Both were started in Paris by Frenchmen.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've been there, the worse is the weight of structures and bureaucracies

</comment><comment><USER29> A question for European readers:

Do you see the culture of the Welfare State as an obstacle to changing culture to accept that being successful, doing new business ventures is a good thing?

<comment><USER30> It's not the Welfare State but bureaucracy and tax greed.

Today I've read a blog post by Jesús Encinar, CEO of idealista.com, the go-to site for renting and buying real state in Spain. The article is in Spanish, short summary below):

[http://www.jesusencinar.com/2011/06/10-ideas-concretas- para-...](http://www.jesusencinar.com/2011/06/10-ideas-concretas-para-que- haya-mas-startups.html)

"Ten ideas to promote startups in Spain"

\- Limited liability

\- The State shouldn't keep VAT returns for a year.

\- Not overtaxing employee's stock (taxed 47% for employees)

\- Not overtaxing business angels

\- Easy foreign workers recruit

\- Limit the need for licenses for everything.

\- Lower freelancers taxes

\- Lower startup social security burden

\- Remove 1% tax on capital ampliations

\- Stop attacking Internet sector

These are only the titles. Reading the details is depressing. Some of what you take for granted in the USA is impossible or infeasible here.

The basic idea is that, in order to startup, you must pay tons of taxes and licenses from the start, even if you're not earning a cent.

<comment><USER31> I agree with your tax greed argument. In Poland, the state will take any and every opportunity to increase tax revenues, while doing nothing to cut expenses. I'm not sure how it works elsewhere in the EU, but here you have to pay VAT on unpaid invoices as well, effectively making you liable for your customers' inability to pay. This, coupled with the fact that courts are inefficient and generally extremely slow in rulings (in the case of delayed payments), is a sure recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER30> Yes the unpaid bills is the same, it's in the article. The problem with the courts is not, but it indeed happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> US workaholics are ruining things for the rest of the world. Cool the hell off, stop the race.

</comment><comment><USER33> Honest question: Is WSJ really an HN worthy source anymore?

EDIT: How far are you WSJ fanboys going to downvote me on this? The company is owned by Rupert Murdock. The same one who owns Fox news. And this article was rubbish. Am I really the only person surprised to see this here?

</comment><comment><USER34> I think the reason for Silicon Valley being in the USA and their entrepeneurial approach is that the USA as a country of immigrants has got higher concentration of people with ADD. ADD people from Europe migrated into the USA since people with ADD are more likely to migrate.

Those people are responsible for the culture of impulsivness and creativity in the USA, kinda like role models. So migration is responsible for the lack of this kind of entrepeneurial approaches in Europe and responsible for the surplus of the same in the USA.

Simple, he? What do you think about this theory?

<comment><USER35> I think there is a large truth here, in that Americans have the entrepreneurial spirit in their blood and in their culture. Most of our ancestors were highly dissatisfied with the status quo, to the point where they were willing to travel thousands of miles to a faraway land, back when that was a much bigger deal than it is today.

But I think this is another discussion entirely.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? I think its spot on. This trend continues to today. As PG has pointed out in his advocacy for a founder visa [1], about half of vc-backed company founders are immigrants [2].

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html> [2] [http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/15/note-to-washington- about-h...](http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/15/note-to-washington-about-half- of-vc-backed-company-founders-are-immigrants/)

<comment><USER34> Even the descendants of ADD immigrants are more likely to have ADD themselves. There is a 30% chance for children to get ADD when 1 parent has got it and 50% chance when both parents have it.

Therefore percentage of people having ADD should be much higher in America than anywhere else.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Textnet: Introduction - <AUTHOR> https://textnet.github.io/#hackernews

<comment><USER2> I see no introduction, or explanation of any kind. [1030am CST]

<comment><AUTHOR> When the site loads, a modal comes up giving a brief introduction.</comment></comment>


Apps Installed on Lots of Android Tracked User Behavior to Run Ad Fraud Scheme - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-a-massive-ad-fraud-scheme-exploited-android-phones-to?fbclid=IwAR1vngiKw5Du41QsBLyygP-0_BcMNa8NcHLf7NoAeCaadtooWNrINsvmDXE <comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to the spreadsheet with the app list. There's 128 apps: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BMJAHOASdeOOYgomSva9...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BMJAHOASdeOOYgomSva9URZnPZ4ZdPbnyxdpqQH9KgI/htmlview)</comment>


Show HN: C++ Modern Web Api Client Built with Oat++ - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/oatpp/oatpp-examples/tree/master/ApiClient-Demo <comment><AUTHOR> oatpp ApiClient is a mechanism which enables you to generate Web Api Clients in declarative manner. Under the hood it uses provided RequestExecutor to perform http requests. Thus you are abstracted from the low-level http-client library implementation and can substitute any other http-client library at any time with zero code changes. Roughly you may treat oatpp ApiClient as Java Retrofit for C++.</comment>