Ask HN: What Happened to Zenefits? - <AUTHOR> It was once ailed as one of the fastest growing companies in history yet I don't hear much about them anymore. I know that there were some problems, but many startups face these problems and come out on top... <comment><USER2> Looks like it's generally trying to keep a low profile, wikipedia[1] hasn't been updated for a while...

I can't find any numbers, but I suspect it's still around $60m - $100m in yearly-recurring revenue. It appears to still be a pretty solid business.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> ha i thought it got re branded to Gusto.. then I realized Gusto was called ZenPayroll, hence the mix-up.... Oh these stupid startup names...

</comment><comment><USER4> I remember interviewing there during the peak hype (late 2015). Crazy environment.

According to Crunchbase they havent raised a round since then. I would guess the main reason we haven't heard much is:

* The ACA employer mandate has been at risk for the past couple of years, which was one of the main drivers of their business model

* They seem to have moved to a more standard SaaS model rather than giving the software away for free and making money on health insurance commissions.

* The CEO turmoil and regulatory issues caused them to keep a low profile.

Overall I think the Series C valuation is at serious risk, but the overall business would be profitable.

</comment><comment><USER5> They seem still alive and regularly sponsor the React Vancouver Meetup ([https://www.meetup.com/ReactJS-Vancouver- Meetup/events/past/](https://www.meetup.com/ReactJS-Vancouver- Meetup/events/past/))

</comment><comment><USER6> The original founder (who was removed) has now started Rippling[1], which is in a similar market.

[1] [https://www.rippling.com/](https://www.rippling.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> From a product perspective: We use Zenefits and it's pretty awesome. From a startup perspective: I think they've given up the "growth at any cost" mentality which caused the drama few years back.

<comment><USER8> What does it do and why is it awesome?

<comment><USER9> Pays your employees and provides health insurance?</comment></comment></comment>


How Grand Theft Auto Explains One of the Biggest Mysteries of the US Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-26/goldman-how-grand-theft-auto-explains-one-of-the-biggest-mysteries-of-the-u-s-economy

<comment><USER2> The article suggests we may not have figured out how to properly measure IT productivity growth.

Another possibility (my guess, no research to support it) is that we really have experienced a reduction in productivity growth. Corporations are doing very well post-recession, labor is not. I say and think this over and over again: corporations have figured out how to take a larger share from productivity than labor has.

At some point, labor has to wonder "why should I?"

Skip to about 1:00 if you like. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iiOEQOtBlQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iiOEQOtBlQ)</comment>


Fukushima Fallout Reaches San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26593/ <comment><USER2> These news stories say more about the incredible sensitivity of radiation sensors than they do about nuclear safety (or personal danger). Here, in the UK, radiation from Fukushima has been picked up in Glasgow and this 'fact' has been reported widely in the media here.

Reporting this is interesting for scientists but unnecessary and possibly disingenuous (to the point of misleading) for the wider public. It can only lead to a heightened sense of panic.

Obligatory analogy that I've just thought of: Just because a telescope can see an exploding supernova does not mean we are in any danger from its blast.

<comment><USER3> In related news: scientists have discovered that an uncontrolled nuclear reaction over one hundred trillion times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb is releasing radiation of all known varieties, including lethal gamma radiation, and will result in the inevitable exposure of all of the earth's surface within the next twenty-four hours. Fallout is expected to reach San Francisco within eight minutes, and no known technology is capable of outrunning it, to say nothing of evacuating the entire city in time.

Scientists claim we are safe - but can they be trusted? We go to you live in Japan, historically believed to be the origin of this dangerous phenomenon.

<comment><USER4> It's a reaction so powerful you can see it with the naked eye.

<comment><USER5> However it's so dangerous, it can burn your eyes if you look at it too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I disagree with the "no health risk" part. There are serious and proven health consequences for chronic anxiety, which this kind of news is obviously stirring up.

Outside Japan(in the SF area for example), the news coverage of this "fallout" may cause more health issues than the "fallout" itself.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely, man, the only time I've been really sick, it was because I was stressed with anxiety, that gave me all sorts of problems, mental and physical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?" Professor "Yes I would, Kent."

</comment><comment><USER9> If I am remembering correctly, the concern with ingestion of I-131 is that it concentrates in the thyroid and the thyroid can receive significant damage by primarily the beta radiation. The gamma radiation emitted in the decay will likely cause minimal damage as much of it will pass through the body without interacting with the soft body tissue. In the following quote the article seems to be discounting the airborne/water contamination by comparing the whole body dose (gamma radiation), which really shouldn't be the main concern.

" If a person were to drink a typical amount of water per day containing the EPA limit of I-131, then in one year he or she would receive a whole body dose of < 0.04 mSv (4 mrem). This dose should be compared to the US average annual radiation dose of 6.2 mSv (620 mrem)."

Seems misleading or improperly reported.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's difficult to combine the various units of measurement they use in the article (combined with the difficulty in comparing point radiation readings with doses over periods of time), but my understanding of the article is that the radiation detected is a fraction of 1 percent above what we normally receive as background radiation (anyone able to confirm or correct me)?

ie: Measurable but completely insignificant.

<comment><USER11> That actually overstates the danger. If the rainwater remains that radioactive for an entire year it will give people 1 percent above normal background radiation, but really I can't think of how the radioactive iodine levels could possibly remain that high so long. So more realistically the citizens of San Fransisco are looking at their yearly radiation dose going up by .1%.

<comment><USER10> "but really I can't think of how the radioactive iodine levels could possibly remain that high so long"

Erm... the reactors and spent fuel ponds keep leaking radiation and the half- life is way more than a year?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> stop calling it fallout.

<comment><USER13> Why, and what's the proper term?

(And if it's the wrong term, why are researchers at MIT and Cornell calling it "fallout"?)

<comment><USER12> I've really only been following <http://mitnse.com> these days, because so far they've been pure facts. I haven't seen any use of 'fallout' there. links?

<comment><USER14> That's likely because aerial fallout is as yet a non-issue, and will likely (hopefully!) remain so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here is a frequently updated page from the UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering department: they're reporting test results from air, rainwater, tap water, and milk.

<http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling>

The detected amounts are tiny, and the site places them in context of other kinds of exposure.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is the EPA limit so low if their aren't any negative health effects until the doses get so many orders of magnitude higher?

<comment><USER16> Because humans aren't the only ones that might potentially be affected? Amphibians are especially susceptible. You'll can find a lot of hubbub about frogs being affect just by the change of UV radiation from the reduction in the ozone layer.

<comment><USER11> In the case of frogs thats because of skin thickness and won't apply to radioactive iodine in the water, but I take your general point that other creatures might be more susceptible to it than humans are.

<comment><USER16> Well, I thought it was due to the permeability of their skin which allows them to more easily absorb contaminants, but I'm not especially studied on the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> From the article...

> US Environmental Protection Agency places a limit for the amount of > iodine-131 allowed in drinking water of 4 becquerels per litre

> By comparison, San Francisco's rainwater contains 16 Bq/litre.

It's four times the safety limit for drinking water! Am I missing anything?

<comment><USER18> We don't drink rainwater directly -- it probably sits in treatment facilities for a while before coming out of your faucet.

<comment><USER19> Trust in the government?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article mentions four elements, iodine-131 and 132, tellurium-132 and cesium-134 and 137, and then focuses on the one with the short half life. Isn't cesium dangerous for a lot longer? Or is iodine the problem because it collects easily in the human body?

<comment><USER21> Intensity of radiation is the _inverse_ of half life. The shorter the half life, the more dangerous a nuclide is while you're exposed to it.

<comment><USER22> Biological half life is the time the body takes to eliminate half the substance in question (or half the toxicity thereof). In this case, the shorter the half life, the less dangerous the specific thing is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I seriously can't tell if this is a bad April Fools joke or not.</comment>


Zika spraying kills millions of honeybees - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/health/zika-spraying-honeybees/ <comment><USER2> This is incredibly sad. Why they wouldn't go out of their way to see to it that people's livlihood was protected is beyond me. And the bees... The poor little bees. They are crucial to the ecological balance of so many crops. Does the pesticide cause harm to any other species? This sucks.

<comment><USER3> Well, the _honey_ bees are an invasive/domesticated species that goes feral a lot, so the above is a bit like worrying about a bunch of pigs getting killed including "wild" boars.

I'd be more worried about the many other pollinators including all sorts of different bees getting zapped; on the other hand, it would really suck to wake up some day to discover Zika is a lot more damaging than we thought, and that's a distinct possibility.</comment></comment>


If Node.js Is So Hot, Then Where Is The Ecosystem? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stuartherbert.com/php/2012/05/21/if-node-js-is-so-hot-then-where-is-the-ecosystem/

<comment><USER2> > With all the buzz and hype around Node JS, it seems reasonable to think that > there'd be plenty of cloud providers out there offering Node JS hosting > services.

Node hosting is not your grandpa's Rails hosting anymore— deploying Node is much easier. If you want to be really quick and deploy to the cloud, take AWS and you are done in 13 steps:

[http://www.tulek.org/2011/03/08/installing-node-on-aws- linux...](http://www.tulek.org/2011/03/08/installing-node-on-aws-linux-ami/) (just one example showing how easy it is)

Maybe the simplicity is the reason that there's just no business modell for one-click-hosters because it's too easy. The added value putting some wrapper around AWS is too small to establish a dedicated business.

And BTW: check Rails automated hosting providers like Heroku: there're just a very few and Rails is there for 7-8 years now! There're just EngineYard, Brightbox, Heroku and maybe two more. And you definitely need automated hosting with Rails like Heroku or you die. Or check Java hosting, I don't know any one-click-hoster for Java and the JVM. If you want the classic PHP and LAMP stack hosting where you put files via FTP on a web server _you_ are not the right target audience for Node.

> Where Are The Community Meet-ups?

Node.js meetups are often integrated in local JS meetups; with conferences it's similar—a JSconf heavily covers Node as well.

> As a rule, Node JS's target audience probably doesn't know enough to safely > and securely run their own Internet-connected servers.

Sorry, but this is a stuck-in-the-mud view on hosting web apps. With Node borders between web server and app server blurred. Node devs have to know more about deploying and hosting when they code in Node because it's integral to Node (Node is more low level than other stuff). A dedicated sys admin or an automated environment like Heroku is nice but you won't die without one and AWS for example IS already managed hosting and that's all you need. And if you would have your personal sys admin—what should he do? Look that you created the http server one liner in Node right or that he knows how to scale your Node app by modeling how nodes and childs interact with each other? No _that's_ exactly the Node dev's jobs, that makes Node so special. If you face heavy traffic it makes sense to dedicate one engineer just to hosting and scaling but until then AWS or Nodejitsu is your friend.

Server vulnerabilities usually come with complex standard deployments like LAMP stacks, Wordpress installations etc. The less you have on the server the safer it will be. The OS stack comes from you hosting provider like AWS, is managed and is safe and the rest (Node) is so simple and little that you get it managed yourself.

> We're just outside London, which is a veritable hive of startup activity > these days.

London, a hive of startup activity?

> I've recently built a product in Node JS, and it was a very positive > experience

If you really liked it and if you agree that there's is a lively ecosystem for Node (just check all the 9,000 modules, _this_ is also the ecosystem) why don't you just help/contribute/improve Node's ecosystem instead of ranting (or kind of)?

<comment><USER3> > ... deploying Node is much easier. If you want to be really quick and deploy > to the cloud, take AWS and you are done in 13 steps:

Those 13 steps were about compiling node, not about serving node.

Serving node is more complex. The real steps in hosting node:

      1. Step up node environment. (explained in the "13 steps blog entry")
      2. Make sure your node app handles exceptions and doesn't just die when something goes wrong (aka: "don't use the built-in one line http start server line")
      3. Install monit/munin/god/upstart/whatever-else to restart your node servers if they die
      4. Set up cluster or node.js's built-in new cluster API
      5. Set up a load balancer, just in case you have performance issues in your app and you end up doing bigger work than you think you do, or have more traffic than you planned for
      6. Set up database, potentially worrying about scaling issues there
      7. Deployment and version rollback system, and dealing with the servers when you deploy code (need to restart them?).
      8. DDOS defense.

I can see why you would want an automated PaaS to take care of all these things for you.

I see two target markets for node.js:

      1. "Hey, you know Javascript, now you can write server side code too!"
      2. "Hey, server side guy, hate how hard it is to do async programming in Ruby/Python (because the majority of the libraries are synchronous?) Javascript can be used on the server and doesn't have that synchronous baggage!"

The second target market certainly knows about all these 8 things I listed, but the first might want/need a managed host.

<comment><USER2> Good post!

Ad 2.: Ok, that's right but rather a general prerequisite, so I would remove it from the list.

Ad 3.: Yes, this is recommended.

4\. and 5. are good steps but optional and should be done in later stages otherwise it's typical premature optimization

6\. Optional you could use hosted solution like MongoHQ

7\. Just install and use Git??

8\. DDOS defense? There's no standard recipe

> I can see why you would want an automated PaaS to take care of all these > things for you.

I agree with you that automated hosting is nice but somehow the bizmodel doesn't seem to appeal. But again, compare this to the Rails world: How many automated hosters do you see there? Not many more.

<comment><USER3> > 7\. Just install and use Git??

I made that point generic for a reason. :)

So you git push to your remote, now you (may) have to tell the servers to reload. Along with other things (database migrations if you're using SQL, compiling native code if you have any of that, potentially updating configuration files if your app needs that, updating assets on a CDN/cache etc).

Yes, sure, a post-receive hook can be wired to do these things, but you have to know that and do the wiring.

<comment><USER4> How is this post receive hook done ideally with Node and Git?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Let's not beat about the bush here. As a rule, Node JS's target audience > probably doesn't know enough to safely and securely run their own Internet- > connected servers. It isn't their skillset. A customer using Node JS really > needs someone to look after all of that for them._

This remark kind of surprised me. Perhaps it's out of ignorance but I feel like I can safely setup and maintain my own web servers without much hassle. Don't you still need to be security-wise if you need to build anything other than the most simple of websites?

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this is one uninformed review of node.js. So the threshold for acceptability of a technology is hosting solutions and a community meetup? Come on.

> Node JS's target audience probably doesn't know enough to safely and > securely run their own Internet-connected servers.

First, the presumption about the "target audience" for node.js is garbage. This is basic ignorance of the community at-large. This same comment could be made in the context of any technology set, if you presume the target audience.

> Where Are The Community Meet-ups?

Behold, a solution: <http://lmgtfy.com/?q=node.js+meetup>

But to answer the question: where is the ecosystem? It's all around -- repositories like Github, commercial providers like Joyent, contributors like Nodejitsu, hosting providers like Windows Azure, and yes -- there are meetups as well.

I guess one just needs to know where to look.

</comment><comment><USER7> Charlie Robbins (CEO and Co-Founder of Nodejitsu) here. I think your thoughts are really poignant. I'd like to make clear that public availability is the absolute top-priority for us over here but we chose to make a couple of choices that other Public Cloud PaaS companies did not. These choices enable us to offer the truly best-of-breed hosting opportunity for Node.js developers:

1\. Early on we recognized that we would not exist as a company if the node.js community was not successful. That is why we have built and maintain over 200 open-source modules on npm. 2\. Infrastructure agnostic (that's right, you get to choose where your servers live). 3\. Multiple platforms (currently Ubuntu and SmartOS). 4\. 100% node.js up and down the stack. This is all we do and I think we do it better than anyone else. We also have provisioning, monitoring, and configuration management tools similar to our jitsu CLI for enterprises. 5\. Commitment to immediate support: If you have a problem, you have a problem __now __, not tomorrow, not 3-days from now. As such, we want to make sure we grew our support team to support increased on-boarding and support requests resulting from public availability. 6\. Private cloud support: this is currently where most of our customers reside. We license them software that they run in their datacenter or self-managed IaaS account.

So rest assured we ramping up for a public release. Feel free to email me at charlie [at] nodejitsu [d0t] com if you'd like to talk more.

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/>

</comment><comment><USER9> you might want to check out this awesome podcast by very serious node contributors/programmers: <http://nodeup.com> They often talk about upcoming conferences, meetups and other interesting stuff like good modules, good ways to do things, etc. Node is not Rails though. It's pretty low-level and really ins't targeted to the same people imo.

</comment><comment><USER10> <https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Node-Hosting>

<comment><USER3> Great link, which (oddly enough, because I don't think this was your intention) backs up the OP's point.

Out of that list of a dozen managed providers, 3 are officially out of beta. One, no.de, the OP talks about. One, Heroku, is listed an using an ancient version of Node.js. The other one looks like an interesting platform.

There are certainly a near infinite number of unmanaged providers, but the OP stipulated (potentially rightly?) that he really prefers a managed solution. Can't say I blame him - having all the infrastructure take care of for you lets you concentrate on code.

<comment><USER11> Heroku seems to allow specifying a version of node:

<https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs-versions>

You can specify anything up to 0.6.17 by the looks of it, Although the default seems to be the ancient version you mentioned.

I've used heroku for a python app in the past and it was a great experience. If the node support is even half as good it should be a solid option.</comment></comment></comment>


All or something (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3106-all-or-something <comment><USER2> "One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming."

This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that this pattern is so old and so widespread suggests that it is not a myth.

A startup is simply a company designed to grow at an exceptionally high rate, and Occam's razor implies that to succeed at this takes the same level of dedication as exceptional performance in any other field.

<comment><USER3> Einstein had a day job as a patent clerk when working on relativity. Leibniz did manage to invent calculus, including the notation used to this day, even though he picked up mathematics relatively late in life and even though he also had a job and lots of other occupations in philosophy, engineering, politics etc. You can do a lot if you dedicate to a problem 10 quality hours a week for 10 years. It still takes a lot of dedication and focus, but stating as some kind of law that unless you work obsessively all the time you can not succeed is rather simplistic for something as vague and at the same time as complex as "success". Hard work isn't a virtue by itself, the capability to do work is a precious _resource_ , that should be used wisely where it will make the most impact.

<comment><USER2> _stating as some kind of law that unless you work obsessively all the time you can not succeed is rather simplistic for something as vague and at the same time as complex as "success"_

Did I do that? It seems to me that what I said was:

"you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, the entrepreneurial success story tends to get corrupted by the noisy example set by tech blogs, and pundits glorifying the investment cycle represented by companies like Groupon, Yelp, etc, rather than the quiet success stories of much more common but less high profile businesses that simply create things that people want and are willing to pay for.

What results is confusion in the minds of young entrepreneurs between what it means to build a business and what it means to swing for the fences. Big ideas start can start small, and that does not preclude the possibility of swinging for the fences, but building the business should be the motivation and the priority, not visa versa. In fact, starting small, cultivating a product, and staying relentlessly focused on customer happiness is the right way to sart a business regardless of how big your ultimate ambitions are.

</comment><comment><USER5> This, to me, is the best counterpoint I've read to Michael Arrington's rant from a few months back on how startup folk need to work _harder_ and stop crying.

[http://uncrunched.com/2011/11/27/startups-are-hard-so- work-m...](http://uncrunched.com/2011/11/27/startups-are-hard-so-work-more- cry-less-and-quit-all-the-whining/)

Arrington is a romantic, and he believes passionately in the romantic mythos of the startup world. That's what drew him to the valley to start TechCrunch in the first place. And that view of the world is warped as hell.

The key is you've just got to match the level of effort you're willing to give to the level of effort required to achieve the goal you've set out for yourself. Not all goals -- including entrepreneurial goals -- require a 120 hour a week personal commitment to succeed.

<comment><USER6> To me, the best counterpoint to Arrington's remarks is to understand where he's coming from. He's a blogger/journalist & VC. The biggest dreamers and swing-for-the-fencers make the best stories / investments.

Of course, the journalist has it even better: He gets good copy when the home- run hitter swings and misses. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The missing part here is that dhh is talented enough that he can date models and drive racecars while running both a multimillion dollar business and one of the world's most important open source projects. Many, perhaps most, aren't talented to that extent or can't context switch to that extent. They can get a lot done, but they have to have singleminded (dareisay "24/7") focus.

Moreover, 37Signals is like the boutique software shop that developers respect, while Facebook is a goliath that doth bestride the world. Zuck is at G8 summits and truly playing for world domination. If that's your goal, as long as you know it's a once a decade phenomenon...go for it! The worst thing that can happen is that you fail and take the huge hit to your ego.

I think there are a lot worse messages out there to our young than "work really hard on a business". The vacation culture of Europe and the leveraged culture of the US are about to lose out to the thrifty workaholics of China. dhh notwithstanding, there have to be some lessons in that.

<comment><USER8> "The vacation culture of Europe and the leveraged culture of the US are about to lose out to the thrifty workaholics of China"

Whether the Chinese have a better work ethic than Americans, I don't know. I'm also unclear what you mean by "lose out to." China has a billion more citizens than the U.S. They __should __be producing more than we are, but at around $5k per capita GDP, they are way behind our $48k per capita GDP. They may work hard, but they produce less, likely because they use manual labor for many of the things we automate.

If they're outcompeting us in the price of exported goods, it's because they're willing to work dirt cheap (by our standards). As they get wealthier, they will have higher standards of living and their production costs will rise. Perhaps ours will have to go lower as well. But I hardly think we want the average American worker to strive for the life of the average Chinese worker today.

You do have a point regarding borrowing vs saving. We westerners tend to live beyond our means, and that is biting us in the butt now.

But again, are we "losing out" to the Chinese because we take more vacation? Exactly what do you think success looks like?

A lot of people would say that working 24/7 to get a yacht but missing your children growing up IS losing out. The reward is not worth the sacrifice. And that's really what the post is about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll upvote this if only because I'm _not_ that young, I have obligations, and I would prefer to have extracurricular activities. I am easily discouraged by the constant stream of wunderkind success stories, and the relative dearth of more "normal" people succeeding. By now I think I've realized that this is because of what sells in terms of news.

</comment><comment><USER10> I find that in tech culture--startups, coders, hackers alike--there is an attitude that if you don't live, breath, sleep your profession that you will fail. And I wonder if this idea that for a startup to succeed you have to give 24/7 comes from that attitude.

One ruby conference, there were two talks by startup founders, the one presenter stated that the only way to succeed was to work 24/7 while the other presenter stated that success only came through working smart and taking time off to recharge and do other things. Both were successful. Personally, I have other things that I want to do and the sooner we can abolish this startup myth the better.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think there's a general myth that you can't have your cake and eat it. Startup - work 24/7 or it'll tank. Work for a corporate - work 24/7 or you won't get noticed and be in the typing pool your entire life. Work in finance - work 24/7 or you'll miss the deal that makes you millions.

The irony is, most people (but by no means all) actually realise that balance is important at a certain point and scale back willingly. The startup boom is no different from people starting small home businesses like they've done for years. We've slapped on a sexy name, told people you can become one of the world's richest people but fundamentally, it's the same as making pies in your kitchen. Some people will be happy making pies for the local market, others will want a deal to get them into a supermarket.

There's space for everyone, you just need to find the level that makes you happy. In my opinion ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> CH blog post comment is so true (can't hard link to it):

        There is a fundamental difference in philosophy here.

        Some startups work 24/7 because they are "swinging for
        the fences" (to use a baseball analogy).

        Where other startups, like yourself [37signals] back in
        the day, are content with simply hitting "singles".

        ....

        Here's the philosophical difference, you can live a good
        life on hitting singles, but you'll never become filthy
        rich unless you swing for the fences.

<comment><USER13> DHH seems to have gotten plenty "filthy rich" hitting singles: <http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/racing>

People who swing for the fences generally fly out to shallow center. You can score lots of runs hitting single after single after single.

<comment><USER12> Having a sports car fits into the "you can live a good life on hitting singles".

Having your own private jet, is when you're filthy rich.

<comment><USER14> This is well beyond your neighbour owning a Ferrari. It takes serious money to race in those leagues.

And if I recall correctly I remember seeing a video of him racing one of my personal favourites, an Aston Martin V12 Vantage (Could have been a DB9/DBS, can't recall exactly).

I would personally consider anyone who can drop six figures annually on a hobby filthy rich. The one's "living a good life" did the kind of racing I used to do, and the wealthy guys there only dropped 20-30k/ year racing around in parking lots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My experience has taught me that it can be all or nothing at during a startup's inception. At my last startup, we had to work incredibly hard to keep our first customers happy. I do, however, think 37s is right when they say that you can turn a startup into a sustainable, quieter business much earlier than most people would assume.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure there is one way to do it. The world needs companies pushing like the yc startup and it needs companies like 37signals. There is lots of room for both sides of the coin and the world is not so black and white as DHH or pg like to make it. :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Cause and effect switched?

Lots of work probably won't make a failing startup succeed (you are probably going in the wrong direction or wasting time on the wrong things). However, a rapidly growing startup requires a lot of time, when it takes off, simply to scale business (hires, offices, VCs, server maintenance etc).

</comment><comment><USER18> It is true that are probably many niche markets that pay respectable income to people who are willing to invest 10-20 hours per week. It's just like how many people become successful at their weekend hobbies and sports.

But many things these days resemble a game of winner takes all(social products, App Store leaderboard, etc...) If you are striving for a top spot in one of these areas, chances are you are facing competitors who are working both "hard" AND "smart". The claim that you can work 10-20 hours a week and stay competitive in these situations just seems overly optimistic to me.

</comment><comment><USER19> You can work relaxed hours while testing hypotheses, building MVPs, interviewing prospective customers.

Once you've got to product-market fit, it becomes drug-like addiction. It's too much fun to give it up for something else.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Most people will look at that and say that's not me. I don't have 110% to give. I have a family, I have a mortgage, I have other interests. Where's my place in the startup world if all I have to give is 60%? What can putting in part-time give?"

If you work full time for a software company, you will probably not be legally allowed to give 60% depending on your contract. I know a lot of my friends tend not to read them before signing. Of course this doesn't apply if you don't do a software start up while working for a software company.

</comment><comment><USER21> Please fix the title, this is not from 2009, it's from Feb 09, 2012.

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh, I thought startups actually _were_ like that, since I've never worked at one because being in perpetual crunch-mode sounds terrible. Plus I feel like any promise of some payoff in the future is really a setup to get fucked by someone who understands finance better than me. I'm not going to grind my life into dust so someone else can have 4 vacation homes instead of 3, then turn around and give me a $5k "attaboy".

DHH calls the all-consuming startup lifestyle a "pervasive myth". I really don't know how much of a myth it is, but if a myth becomes pervasive enough, it's as good as reality in many scenarios. If enough people believe a dollar has zero value, then it does.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've been critical of seeing so many 37Signals posts around here lately but this one really is a true gem! He's right, there's this idea that you just have to work 24/7 and have no life to be a success. Businesses aren't cool but startups are. What's the difference? These days the difference is one is cool and the other isn't. One makes you think of the 20-something hipster genius loner hacker and the other makes you picture a boring mediocre person who didn't have the balls to do a startup so he starts a "business" (eww, gross, right?).

<comment><USER24> Business => J-O-B

Job seems to be a four letter word in some circles...

<comment><USER23> I never thought of it that way. At first I didn't know what the hell you we're talking about because of the whole 25 hour a day work schedule people seem to think is necessary for startups but then I realized a lot of people, in some circles like you say, do a startup to avoid real work. I'm not saying a statup isnt real work, just that there is a group of people I've seen who go into some half baked startup idea because they seem to think if you call it a startup it's an excuse to play all day with personal projects that have no business model and hope to god the magic VC fairy will come to visit them one day.

<comment><USER24> I blame books like "The 4 hour work week".

It's all based on the misconception that if you work for yourself, you don't have a boss. In reality, you have a lot of bosses at that point it's just that they are called customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Doing a statup now.

There is a LOT of work and a LOT of learning. I don't see how I can get to launch without working my tail off.

I think this kind of crap us peddled by startups which happened to succeed because they hit profitability quickly and have cash cows that throw off a lot of cash.

In a startup your going to be doing a lot of stuff you have no clue about - your going to gave to work your ass off in the beginning.

But yes, starting a business is different from "startup". Lots of entrepreneurs dont get that.

<comment><USER26> What is the difference? A startup is a business by definition.

<comment><USER25> Every business is not a startup. A startup is a business which doesnt have guaranteed or well known cashflows. Or rather its trying to figure out its chashflows.</comment></comment></comment>


The hierarchy of countries winning Nobels in the sciences is shifting - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/05/10/the-hierarchy-of-countries-winning-nobels-in-the-sciences-is-shifting <comment><USER2> I think nobels are overrated as an indicator of scientific research, because they don't capture most of the research but only the "super-star" researchers. This is great for figuring out which flagship institutions are attracting the best of the best, but this is not what you want to measure if you think of "research output".

<comment><USER3> I disagree a bit with you. In today's world we have reached a state where next new research output requires access to advance tools and strong funding which is only available to researchers at flagship institutions. There isn't any real research happening outside of flagship institutions; other institutions may make big claims on research they are doing but they almost never deliver output. In some sense, distribution of nobel prizes per country can be attributed countries research outout.

<comment><USER2> > There isn't any real research happening outside of flagship institutions

Does that really imply research only happens at stanford, MIT and Harvard? Or what are "flagship" institutions?

What I wanted to say is that you can skew you distribution of researchers towards the absolute top by giving the few an enviroment the competitors can't match. I would think that this will probably be revealed if you compare for example nobel-prizes to overall citations a country produced. But that's harder to track.

<comment><USER4> > _Does that really imply research only happens at stanford, MIT and Harvard?_

The research that matters, yes. There and in a few others all around the world.

Papers, on the other hand, are written everywhere by the thousands...

<comment><USER5> > The research that matters, yes. There and in a few others all around the > world.

Do you have any basis for this claim?

I've found that (for example) the top research in cosmology and the top in material design and the top in semiconductor physics (as it moves into exploring exotics) are not only different universities (around the world), but that none of them are the three that are mentioned up-thread.

Now, I can sling an anecdote with the best of them, but I am surprised at your claim, so I'm hoping you have better data than I?

<comment><USER4> > _but that none of them are the three that are mentioned up-thread._

Not sure if cosmology is some exception (I guess one could find specialist universities in all kinds of subjects), but overall those three as exactly ranked as the top three, ranked by papers, quality, citations, patents, etc, here, across all kinds of fields:

"To compile the 2017 ranking of the world's most innovative universities, Clarivate Analytics (formerly the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters) began by identifying more than 600 global organizations – including educational institutions, nonprofit charities and government-funded labs – that publish the most academic research. Then they evaluated each candidate on 10 different metrics, focusing on academic papers (which indicate basic research) and patent filings (which point to an institution's ability to apply research and commercialize its discoveries), and ranked them based on their performance."

1 Stanford University

2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

3 Harvard University

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amers-reuters-ranking- inn...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amers-reuters-ranking-innovative- univ/reuters-top-100-the-worlds-most-innovative- universities-2017-idUSKCN1C209R)

<comment><USER2> this is exactly what I wanted to criticise by my comment. I don't think these rankings are that important because they don't capture what the (original) article wanted to measure. There's only one stanford, which might be better than every other university out there. But there are a lot, often way smaller, universities out there that produce fantastic research. You have to add them together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Nobel-prize data suggest the productivity of American science has fallen

Nope, it could also be that suddenly the rest of the world is starting to catch up. There is a fixed number of Nobel-prizes, it's not a measure of productivity -- unless you figure research is fixed sum game.

<comment><USER7> This is exactly what's happening. I despise these headlines that are couched with a mildly anti-American sentiment. You could easily re-write it to convey the fact that many parts of the world are experiencing great prosperity and development and thus scientific achievement. But no, let's write as America is circling the drain.

Edit: looks like the title was updated

<comment><USER8> There really is a long-term productivity problem in the USA though. Edward Luce wrote a good book on the subject a couple of years back, "Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent". He's a journalist at the FT. That and his "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" are very well researched and readable.

The book speaks to exactly these trends of decreasing productivity, loss of manufacturing and a decline in educational attainment of the US population as a whole.

The book is not anti-American but a warning by someone who is concerned about the decline of America and the social and geo-political implications that implies.

<comment><USER9> meh my prior on british nationals writing about american decline is not very high...even if he did work for larry summers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why does this graph show only 4 countries as if they are the top 4?

Per capita, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, Norway all have more Nobel prizes per capita than UK.

[https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour...](https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/journals/content/nejm/2012/nejm_2012.367.issue-16/nejmon1211064/production/images/img_xlarge/nejmon1211064_f1.jpeg)

Their statement "Accounting for population, it is the British who have accumulated the most Nobel prizes" is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure I find those statistics compelling. I'd like to see the numerical method used to compute the first derivative. Was it just a finite difference? The Nobel prizes are lumpy and so they smoothed the function as well.

I'd be much more interested in a comparison between the European union and the USA, which are similar in GDP and population.

Would be very interesting to see the aggregate and slope of China and India as well. Are they gaining? My perception has been that they are not, but the data is so lumpy, and the nobel such a lagging indicator, that I'm not sure it has meaning.

<comment><USER12> I had the same reaction. It looks like they fit a spline to the data, and then took the analytical derivative of the spline. But there are other ways to do it like locally weighted regression. In general estimating derivatives from real world data is noisy, ill conditioned, should be treated carefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the numbers it looks like Nobel per capita in western countries should be even out over long term, but things like immigration and wars, and economics produces temporary (even century long) disruptions.

</comment><comment><USER14> Of course. It's common sense. As the rest of the world gets more industrialized, wealthier and better educated, it's inevitable the awards will be less concentrated in one place. It's keep spreading out as time goes on.

It's not just nobel prizes in science. It's billionaires list, chess rankings, supercomputers list, top polluters list, top colleges, everything.

China by itself has more people than US and Europe combined. India by itself has more people than the US and Europe combined. ASEAN has more people than europe. If they are able to continue to develop and contribute, it's inevitable that their share of the prizes will increases sooner or later.

What's tragic is that the opportunity costs for them being so underdeveloped. How many geniuses and entrepreneurs were wasted because of lack of development and opportunity? How much human progress have we left of the table as a result? It's sad to think about.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nobel prices come in lumps, as Feynman would say. Missing out on a just one lump can skew that graph significantly.

Going back in time, both the German and UK graphs have points where one could've come to the same conclusion, except they quickly recovered.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://archive.st/archive/2018/9/www.economist.com/l9to/](https://archive.st/archive/2018/9/www.economist.com/l9to/)</comment>


AT&T Vs Net Neutrality...Will This Ever End?  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/att-drop-net-neutrality-or-u-verse-gets-it.ars

<comment><USER2> I hope AT&T does kill U-Verse. It's 2010 and still the only tier with HD is the top tier which is ridiculously expensive.

Every time I go home it hurts me to see my parents' nice new HD TV running shitty non-HD content. I get better quality watching netflix on my 360.</comment>


Content-Type: Malicious – New Apache 0-day Under Attack - <AUTHOR> http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/03/apache-0-day-exploited.html <comment><USER2> Apache should be phased out.

Tomcat and nginx seem to ha e fewer cults and are as performant. Why is Apache so popular still?</comment>


A New Cheap Alternative to the Internet in Canada - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/LJCKv.png

<comment><USER2> In Calgary here; I don't experience any "caps" on my usage.

I don't count how much I download but I'm pretty sure I average over 100GB/mo easily.</comment>


Ask HN: What do people think about the concept of 'crowd-creating?' - <AUTHOR>

Noting the growing activity in areas of crowdsourcing/crowdfunding, I have been toying with the idea of 'crowd-creating.' Is it practical to create a platform where individuals/makers/experts from all over the world can get together and collaborate on projects (software+hardware) without ever having to meet (or meet occasionally)? Would such a platform be conducive to building products? Is physical presence a must? <comment><USER2> Right now this kind of thing is generally a leadership-driven project. While it's easy to make a space if you have a venue, someone also has to stand up and say "This space is for this purpose and I am going to work on advertising it as that, and organizing it so that it gets people who are interested in this topic in the door and talking to each other and doing valuable things with their time."

And then the technical problem is reduced to how cheaply and effectively they can message people about group activities, with physical presence being expensive/effective and comment threads being cheap/ineffective, and other tools like email, TV advertisement, etc. going somewhere in between. It takes a LOT of time and energy when you're going all-out to build up contact lists and follower counts and push messages out to them and make arrangements and do deals. This is how we now do present-day entrepreneurship; there are companies that go without physical presence, but we like having it around.

If you can solve this in a way that makes it an order of magnitude easier to organize activity, it would be a huge breakthrough for society, because it's the cost of communicating these basic "allocation problems" that ultimately drives the economy into monetized territory.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think 'crowd-sourcing' carries over well enough across the niche you're exploring conceptualizing. Your thread caught my eye though because my colleagues and I are trying to build momentum behind 'Humanitarian Crowdfunding' and folks are mulling it over too. To a degree, it can't hurt to try building something around your term or else around a platform name and pitch using 'sourcing' but emphasizing your sub-niche. Just a thought...

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, already happening ~ Open source projects / products on www.github.com

But driven by the right leadership for each project.

If the collaboration tools are attractive (significantly more usable than currently available alternate offerings) enough for the leaders, rest will follow through.</comment>


When Security Takes a Backseat to Productivity - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/06/when-security-takes-a-backseat-to-productivity/ <comment><USER2> I will echo a comment I made in a different thread about the CIA hack.

Why does anybody assume they would be able to protect their systems even if it was their main priority?

The CIA works on cyber-weapons designed to surveil countries, disable infrastructure, and destabilize governments. How capable and well-funded should a person or country need to be to destroy an economy or destabilize a government by stealing the CIA's weapons? $1B, $10B, $1T? A team of 1,000, 10,000, 1,000,000 specialists?

I think most people would probably agree that $1B is a lower bound for nation- destroying capabilities. You could hire a team of 100s-1000s of offensive security specialists full-time for 10 years with a budget of $1B. Does anyone know of any system or organization in existence that would even be willing to claim they can stop of a team of 1000 dedicated offensive security specialists working full-time for 10 years with a $1B budget let alone put it in writing or have evidence to back up that claim? What is the highest you have heard? Is it even in the general ballpark? I have personally never talked to an organization willing to claim a number higher than $1M and willing to put their money where their mouth is.

If nobody is even willing to claim that they can provide an actual defense, let alone having the extraordinary evidence required to backup an extraordinary claim of $1B, why is there any reason to believe that the CIA would be able to protect themselves even if they prioritized the problem?

<comment><USER3> Sure, any public facing system is theoretically vulnerable given infinite monkeys. What I don't understand is why this data wasn't airgapped. I've spoken with enough colleagues in defence to know that plenty of facilities do this as standard, even for tooling source code, let alone a trove of juicy intel data.

And FTA "Segmenting one's network", even my shoddy underfunded local health dept has implemented that one. The CIA didn't even do the basics here.

<comment><USER2> That is missing the point. It is not that infinite monkeys could break in, it is that the NECESSARY level of security can not be met even assuming the best known practical system. Therefore, they MUST NOT use/create such a system since they can not achieve the MINIMUM requirement. There is no point in improving systems from ridiculously inadequate to very inadequate since the system still does not work and you MUST NOT use systems that DO NOT WORK in critical capacities.

Like, imagine a world where the Army made tanks out of tissue paper. You could say, "Look at these clowns. Don't they know regular paper provides better defense than tissue paper.". While true, it does not really matter since if the best armor available is paper, every strategy should probably avoid depending on tanks.

My point is about looking at OBJECTIVE requirements and evaluating solutions against them. At a basic level this boils down to two questions:

1\. What is the NECESSARY level of security?

2\. Can anybody achieve the NECESSARY level of security?

If the answer to 2 is no, then the system MUST NOT be used/created.

<comment><USER4> I mean, you can still be a hard target or a soft target.

I guess this doesn't apply to unique assets like the CIA, but for your regular old e-commerce firm, you can have defences that wouldn't stand up to a sustained, targeted attack by state actors, but still make regular hackers go steal somebody else's DB of customer details.

<comment><USER2> Soft/Hard only considers one side of the equation, the level of security provided. It ignores the other side which is what is needed or expected. Without doing that you can not tell if you are dealing with soft/hard or tissue/paper. A more meaningful distinction is profitable/unprofitable and, if you really must rely on other people being tastier fish in the barrel, ROI. For example, if company A costs $10K to hit for a return of $100K, but company B costs $100K to hit for a return of $100M, the only reason someone would hit A knowing this information is if they did not have enough capital to hit B.

I agree that not everybody needs to be able to withstand an attack by state actors. It is up to the involved and affected parties to choose the level of security needed. However, the highest level of actual security I have heard from people is ~$1M and I would be hard pressed to find any appreciable system in a moderately-sized business where the negative consequences would be as low as ~$1M. Frankly, $1M is chump change in the commercial world. If that is all it takes to compromise nearly any system or organization in the world, then a sizable fraction of the people reading this comment and around 46,800,000 people worldwide have the personal resources to compromise any system in the world. That is terrifying.

<comment><USER4> Are you sure there are negative consequences of ~$1M? You're talking a lot about profitable/unprofitable, but you haven't linked to any sources that back up your numbers.

Maybe the marketplace just doesn't value security? Customers seem happy to give away all their data to Google/Facebook for free. Equifax got completely and thoroughly owned but it hasn't seemed to cost them anything. Zoom is a security nightmare but keeps getting more popular.

Companies aren't going to value security until the lack of it starts to sting their stock price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is backwards.

If you want security to be a first class constraint, you must make security features extremely easy to use and ergonomic above all else (even above being secure!).

Nobody is going to willingly agree to abandon their productivity or flexibility for your security tool or policy. If you make them choose, security will lose 100% of the time, forever, in every walk of life.

You need to stop viewing it as if you need people to sacrifice for security and instead design for ergonomics and usability as the obsessive, #1 priority.

This is why consumer password managers succeed (and help people to be more secure!) but internal security teams can't get anything done in private companies.

Your first responsibility is to make something your users want and like to use, period. After you solve that, then, without disrupting usability, you can modify it to actually adhere to security constraints and achieve other results.

If I see that a company has an internal security team my first question is, where is the product manager?

If you don't treat internal security tooling like you're delivering a product, then you're done. Just go home and watch Netflix because you're not solving security problems.

<comment><USER6> > You must make security features extremely easy to use and ergonomic above > all else (even above being secure!).

That's definitely not right.

The correct security design is that when things aren't secure you fail entirely. This will sometimes be _very_ annoying but the temptation to prefer not failing leads to disaster. Instead an organisation that prioritises security must dedicate resources to resolving the actual security problem as a priority _because_ it is very annoying.

For example 'thisisunsafe' and its predecessor 'badidea' are indeed, unsafe and a bad idea. The correct design is to simply fail instead. Which organisation do you think gets successfully phished with invalid HTTPS certificates - the Chrome embracing organisation that has taught people they can just type "thisisunsafe" or the one where everybody uses Firefox and it brick walls when HSTS denies access?

> Nobody is going to willingly agree to abandon their productivity or > flexibility for your security tool or policy.

This is almost correct. Humans are very lazy. They _will_ give up their productivity or flexibility for your security tool or policy if it's easier than the alternative.

For example when your users are trying to give their credentials to bad guys, you need to make this _so difficult_ they give up.

You might think you can train your users not to want to give their credentials to bad guys, but this is unlikely to be successful enough to bother. Instead get to a place where your users, even though they really want to help the bad guys, just can't see an easy way to do it.

They may even file a helpdesk ticket because they genuinely don't realise what they're trying to do would be a very bad idea. Try not to be smug when responding to the ticket.

<comment><USER5> > The correct security design is that when things aren't secure you fail > entirely.

Yikes, this is extremely wrong. Security failures should be proportional to the actual cost and consequences.

On top of this, you can't just fail systems in a business. You'll lose all your customers and go bankrupt. On the other hand, you _can_ allow security vulnerabilities to continue existing. Sometimes you might lose customers or face legal consequences, so you might _have to_ address those security situations, but they are in the rare minority of all security issues overall, many of which you just need to apply expected value thinking towards and treat like any other trade-off.

Security is a resource to be traded off against other concerns, not an absolute necessity.

<comment><USER6> > Security failures should be proportional to the actual cost and > consequences.

That's wonderful for Nostradamus, but everybody else is obliged to operate without knowledge of the future. What will the _actual_ consequences be of bad guys being able to send email from the VP Asia Pacific's account to the CFO's office five minutes before close of business?

Maybe nothing right? Or maybe an "urgent cash payment" of $48M to secure a take over deal vanishes into a maze of international accounts never to be recovered...

Security is a special problem because you have unknown sentient adversaries. You completely lack intelligence about the adversary because you don't even know who they are. Don't think about security decisions the way you'd think about decisions like whether to hire a back-up venue in case the company picnic is rained off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When does it not? Seriously, has anyone here worked somewhere security _actually_ was front and center but people were also able to build new things?

<comment><USER8> My current job at Google working on virtualization?

<comment><USER9> Don't think it counts. That's a neccisary condition to multi tenancy cloud tech. It's a product feature that customers require and ask for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the article referencing the Wikileaks taskforce - _" The CIA acknowledged its security processes were so "woefully lax" that the agency probably would never have known about the data theft had Wikileaks not published the stolen documents online._

If hollywood did one thing well - it was to inspire in me a misplaced faith in the competency of security/government institutions.

<comment><USER11> If you're in search of cure, get a job in government. It's an education both in brute force and ignorance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are big shifts in the economics of security technology [https://semiengineering.com/fundamental-changes-in- economics...](https://semiengineering.com/fundamental-changes-in-economics-of- security/). More and higher value data, thinner chips and a shifting customer base are forcing long-overdue changes in semiconductor security

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm led to believe that the CIA is run like Equifax but I can't shake the feeling that this is all a smokescreen.

<comment><USER14> Good point. But Occam's razor, and Hanlons as well. Given the evidence I'm going to go with equifax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The most secure work is the work that doesn't get done. That is to say, if it doesn't exist, it can't be stolen. That's where security above all inevitably takes us, and the defensive guys get to pat themselves on the back and declare victory.

<comment><USER16> that's not security, that's obscurity. don't confuse one with the other

<comment><USER17> No, "obscurity" does not mean "bad security", it specifically refers to the practice of hiding the details of the mechanism hoping that it makes it more secure.

Things like "Pet names and mother's maiden names are common security questions, so maybe lets not store those in our employee info database" are valid security considerations. And of course they make the employee database slightly less useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Comment "No effective removable media controls" Is shocking

15+ Years ago QinetiQ used to solder up the usb ports on its lap tops and that's for those working on avowed jobs, not the Secret Squirrel ones.</comment>


Is the IQ of the Hacker News community as a whole = average IQ of its members? - <AUTHOR>

One would expect not as collaborative behavior could result in a higher collaborative IQ than the average of its members (e.g., when it comes to determining which submissions and comments are interesting).<p>It might be interesting to determine the IQ of the Hacker News community as a whole using a standard IQ test and compare it to that of reddit and digg.  One way to do this would be to use polls where you can see how others have voted so far before giving your answers to the various IQ test questions. <comment><USER2> I think that the IQ of a forum is not the average but actually the top and the bottom. The top people control the quality posts, and the bottom people make trouble.

The answer to your question depends on the goal. If the goal is to solve a problem then the IQ of the whole is actually the IQ of the top members, and NOT the average.

If the goal is competition (everyone wants attention, or wants to make the best posts) then it's more often the IQ of the lowest members.

But the average IQ of a large group is never a good measure because the good floats to the top (i.e. the top IQ's matter), and the bad clutters it (i.e. the bottom IQ's matter).

</comment><comment><USER3> Not many aggregates are truly equal to the sum of the parts.

I would argue that it's at closer to being proportional to some sort of weighted average, where the weights are activity based: a very active member has a much larger impact than an inactive member.

Of course, it's also very debatable whether community IQ is a good variable to maximize on. Civility & creativity both strike me as more important, once some basic intelligence threshold is exceeded.

</comment><comment><USER4> Online IQ tests are never very indicative. It can be hard to concentrate on & parse the test. Scores are likely to be significantly lower.

Also most top out at 144 as anything higher would be tough to judge based on such a test. I would imagine a large segment of this cmmunity is above 144 IQ.

However if anyone wanted to post their IQ'ds it would be interesting (if not very conclusive). I would figure the average to be in excess of 120 though.

It _might_ work here, I doubt Digg/Reddit would manage it (too biiiiig) :P

<comment><USER5> ive always figured that online iq test were on average higher because they want you to buy the results. Id also doubt that over 5% have an iq of 140+

<comment><USER4> Well, yes, I suppose some are. But ones like the Mensa online tests are usually fairly ok in terms of fair marking.

5% is quite a high number to be above 140 :) I'd bet there are a goodly few people far enough over 144 to skew any results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would focus much less on IQ and more on knowledge, experience, skills. To the extent that HN is a learning community or a community of practice then members can learn from others with more relevant experience to improve their own understanding and skills. There is a lot more that HN could do to foster shared learning, at the moment it's primary advantage is maintaining shared situational awareness.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, but it's tough to judge intelligence... I seem to recall people always saying that IQ tests aren't good indicators of intelligence, especially when taken online. Something like ACT/SAT might demonstrate academic ability, but then again not everyone copes so well with standardized testing.</comment>


Tired Developer Debates That Need to Just Die Already - <AUTHOR> https://levelup.gitconnected.com/4-tired-developer-debates-that-need-to-just-die-already-37da906d4f9e <comment><USER2> With all these I'm less interested in why someone thinks something X is better than Y as much as I am "Show me how that works for you?"

Nobody ever really says in detail exactly how their experience showed them that X is better than Y... but that's probably the most useful thing I want to know, and the most productive path discussion wise.

Granted asking them to go into detail would involve a great deal of work but that aside it is really hard to understand what anyone means when they make such blanket statements. Personally I really want to know those things as I want to learn about other people's experiences / how they reached those opinions, but I almost never see them.

Outside that it all seems to just be tribal garbage.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm inclined to agree. Without any evidence or context, these arguments rarely serve any purpose, and are most often driven by strongly-held opinions rather than objective analysis.</comment></comment>


Deep Learning Resources – the best way to learn DL from scratch in 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/deep-learning-resources-e32bd081e84d <comment><USER2> > This is a collection of the best resources that will help you get started, > that assumes no prerequisites other than basic understanding of Python.

On the other hand, for those who already have a Math/CS undergrad's familiarity with Linear Algebra, Calculus, and Probability, the best resource is pretty much www.deeplearningbook.org .</comment>


Browser-based interface for the new Deezer's audio separation engine - <AUTHOR> http://moises.ai/login <comment><USER2> Thanks James, if you have any feedback, let me know!

</comment><comment><USER3> It's an awesome tool!

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice job, Geras. Grats

</comment><comment><USER5> solid! made my remixing life just easier.

</comment><comment><USER6> Magical!</comment>


Why should you outsource your Mobile App Development - <AUTHOR> https://www.techtic.com/blog/outsource-mobile-app-development/ <comment><USER2> How does WhatsApp hiring an overseas contractor to work on iOS full-time count as outsourcing?</comment>


The Political War on Cash - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-political-war-on-cash-1455754850 <comment><USER3> This is an alarmist piece on negative interest rates.

The real war on cash is driven by consumer convenience, the IRS, and Anti-(Drug|Terrorism|Vice) government agencies. Government agencies want a paper trail to catch tax evaders and illicit activity.

Whenever I see a very popular business (usually a bar or restaurant) that takes "Cash Only". I think to myself "Tax Evader". Which may or may not be true. Sadly, they are painting a target on their back.

<comment><USER4> While "cash only" could be an indicator of tax evasion, it's also a way to sidestep credit card fees which can chew up a few percent of your profit margin.

<comment><USER5> At least here in Sweden I'm seeing more and more places going "card only", leading me to believe that the cost (and risk) of handling cash must be at least as high as the cost and risk of handling cards.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, cash has to be counted, delivered to a bank to be deposited, can be "misplaced" by employees, the old "sorry, I don't have enough change" issue

<comment><USER7> Before credit cards became widely used, restaurants used to be common robbery targets. A whole night's takings in cash is a solid score.

That's no longer the case, because you'd mostly just get a pile of worthless credit card receipts for your trouble now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can still buy gold (and if they try to ban that, they'd have to ban jewellery also, so good luck trying that). Gold isn't actually that dense - <USER2> terms of currency it's about as dense as $50 bills[1]. Platinum or palladium maybe?

[1] Assuming this site: [http://1000000-euro.de/how-much-does-a-million- dollars-weigh...](http://1000000-euro.de/how-much-does-a-million-dollars- weigh/index.php#weigh-dollar) is correct.

Edit: Of course I'm confusing density with mass. Anyone want to work out the volume?

<comment><USER9> > and if they try to ban that, they'd have to ban jewellery also, so good luck > trying that

But they did ban gold in the US in 1933 without banning jewellery[0]. The ban doesn't have to be perfect to be useful to a government.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Civil disobedience matters. Use cash and cryptocurrencies only.

</comment><comment><USER11> Italy's limit has been raised from 999.99 to 2999.99 at the beginning of the year. It means you couldn't pay 1000 in cash, now it's 3000.

Any banknote larger than 50 Euro is very uncommon here. ATMs don't give them. Anecdote: I was sure the 200 one is green and when I googled for the 100 note I discovered that it's the 100 which is green; the 200 is yellow. I remembered correctly that the 500 is pink.

Doing without the 100 USD bill would be problematic for tourists in those countries with very minimal credit card penetration and that insist to accept only pristine very recent bills, the ones that in the West would be looked at with suspicion. Example: former USSR central Asia countries.

<comment><USER12> And despite all this, the EU still issues one of the world's largest banknotes, the €500 note.

<comment><USER13> I've never seen one in the wild, and only ever actually seen one in person when I. Was in school - they had one to show us what it looks like

<comment><USER14> You see them on occasion (but not commonly) in Austria & Germany. I commonly see 100 euro bills and 200 are not that rare either.

I believe that once when paying the security deposit for an apartment in Vienna I used a 500 euro bill & it phased no one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Having no high denomination bills is also very problematic.

I witnessed it firsthand in Argentina until very recently, and in Venezuela and other hyper-inflation countries it's still a huge burden.

Spanish-language links:

[http://www.elpais.com.uy/economia/noticias/argentina- reclama...](http://www.elpais.com.uy/economia/noticias/argentina-reclaman- billete-mas-que.html)

Translated quote: "Not having higher denomination bills leads to very high costs in transportation and storage because of the large volumes handled and because bills don't fit in small safes."

Other curious facts: Singapore has a 10.000 dollar bill (U$ 7.500), and Switzerland has a 1000 CHF bill (U$ 1070).

However, the Singapore bill won't be printed anymore, for the same issues (money laundering concerns).

[http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2014/july/singapore-to- st...](http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2014/july/singapore-to-stop- issuing-10000-dollar-notes-to-combat-financial-crime/)

<comment><USER16> Random aside, but:

I was once next in line at a bank in Singapore, and I watched the lady in front of me withdraw around 10 x $10,000 bills in cash. (They're golden yellow and very distinctive: [http://www.singaporemint.com/images/facts/port10000.gif](http://www.singaporemint.com/images/facts/port10000.gif)) She counted them carefully, then she put them in her purse and walked away.

Now Singapore's a pretty safe place to be, but how many other people watching were tempted to follow her and see if they could get their hands on US$75,000, in cool, untraceable cash at that?

<comment><USER17> Japan has similar behaviour. For example, it's common practice to pay cash for new cars. (Or at least it used to be not very long ago).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not registering to read full article but the other mainstream articles list curbing terrorism & crime as the main reasons. None mention the possibility of cash withdrawl in a negative rate environment. (Can anyone verify?) But I find it hard to believe we'll go negative since it would destroy the money markets, & possibly pensions.

<comment><USER19> That's starting already:

[http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article60760061.html](http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article60760061.html)

Man can you imagine getting a letter like this when you're 75 ? What are these people to do ?

<comment><USER20> Having worked in a trading company for some time, investing in _anything_ not backed by a government, especially a retirement money, seems as a bit of a reckless idea to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't want huge denominations, but assuming inflation over the last 50 years, seems to me that we should have a $500US note.

Yes, I understand if LE had their way we'd be paying with 5-spots, but convenience has to mean something also. Let's bring back the $500 bill and then index the entire thing to inflation such that there isn't more than a dozen or so steps between the smallest and largest monetary units.

I don't think this is a political discussion/argument we need to have constantly. Fix it once and then leave it alone. I'm also completely opposed to eliminating all currency and going totally electronic, which sounds like an even more dystopian state than the current one our betters have created for us over the last decade or two.

<comment><USER22> Considering Europe's experience with high denomination notes, I strongly think this is a bad idea. In fact, Europe is considering eliminating €200 and €500 notes, since they're mostly used for illegal activities. Example: 75% of the cash in Spain is in €500 bills[1]. Considering me and most people I've known have only taken a glimpse at those (and usually, when getting paid under the table), this roughly means €45B in cash, used for corruption, illegal enterprises and tax evasion (really, few other practical cases exist for such high value notes) is flowing through our economy.

[1] [http://www.abc.es/economia/abci-75-por-ciento-efectivo- circu...](http://www.abc.es/economia/abci-75-por-ciento-efectivo-circula- espana-billetes-500-euros-201602161819_noticia.html)

<comment><USER23> If you look carefully, there's no evidence it's used for "criminal activities". In fact the article says there is only "growing concern" that they may be being used for criminal activities. Where is the evidence? They just know its not moving through the system, so there for it _must_ be criminals.

A large portion of this I see as people moving their transactions outside of the banking system. The main reasons are a loss in faith is the financial system (especially in Europe). The banking system is very expensive, and very shaky. Just look at Deutsche Bank at the moment. And the Europeans all remember the situation that unfolded near them in Cyprus.

Over time there will be more and more of the general economic transactions happening outside of the banking sector as the banking sector seeks to extract more wealth to pay off their bad debts and improve their solvency with haircuts, negative interest rates, bank holidays, bail ins, bail outs or capital controls.

It's an extremely dangerous option to try, though, as it could lead to people losing faith with the system even more and shows how desperate they are. Things might be worse behind the scenes than they look on the surface.

<comment><USER24> As an investor in Spain I've seen a lot of it used for not very legal activities. They used to have something called 'B money' on probably most property sales where you paid one amount say 170,000 euro officially and maybe 20,000 in cash B money so as to avoid the government stamp duty on the sale price. It was kind of tolerated and legally a bit grey. It would be more hassle to do if you had to count out 200 bank notes rather than 20. There also used to be a lot of property bought for cash with drug money which was of course illegal but went on a fair bit.

<comment><USER21> There's "illegal" and then there's "shady"

We see a lot of that in the states. You'll buy a car for $1500. Both of you call the "official" price $500. The seller pays less sales tax. You pay less property tax.

Yes, illegal. But drug-running it's not.

It's one thing to want to make things tough on drug dealers or terrorists. It's something else entirely to want to be able to observe and control every instance of money moving through the economy. We have to ask ourselves what the real goal is here. Or maybe a better question is: where are we going to end up?

I know in the states we've seen a lot of drastic action around organized crime, mobs, and drugs. We had the RICO statute, then various laws around money movement. All passed because of severe and dangerous threats. But now? All of that heavy firepower we passed to prevent severe threats is applied to the average citizen. The effects are not pleasant to observe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> All cash transactions will now have to be done in coin. Have a weighty day.

</comment><comment><USER23> In the unfolding of this agenda, when they invariably claim only criminals use these notes, remember what they mean by "criminal". It is anyone who holds wealth outside of the mainstream financial system where they, the government and banks, could confiscate it with negative interest rates.

Negative interest rates will never "work" without also having _capital controls_.

<comment><USER26> Not sure how negative interest rates confiscate money? The value of money is hollowed by inflation, and central banks use negative interest rates as a tool to try to _increase_ inflation. If there is zero or near-zero inflation (People will always argue about what inflation is and what the level is, but for the sake of discussion assume it's a very low positive number) -- what is the problem with a central bank having an interest rate of, say, -0.25%?

Note that I'm talking about monetary policy now, that is central bank interest rates. Not commercial bank savings rates. The latter are typically either zero or slightly positive even if the central banks rate is negative.

<comment><USER23> The net effect of negative interest rates is to transfer wealth from savers to debtors. This would reduce the amount of total debt that's crushing the economy, _theoretically_ leading to growth. But would do so by confiscating wealth from savers either indirectly through inflation, or directly through depositor fees combined with capital controls. Effectively it will reward all those who have taken on too much debt and punish all those who have been prudent and saved. A very perverse incentive indeed.

In a negative interest rate environment inflation is not going to be a very low positive number. It is going to be much higher. That's half the aim. To inflate away the debt and pay it off with cheaper money. Instead of banks needing to pay the central bank to borrow money, the central bank is going to pay them to take it. And they have the power to coin. Inflation is going to be dramatically higher.

In my opinion, what should be done now is to let the market crash. The long term cause of the crisis has been the constant effort to stop the business cycle from occurring. Instead of having lots of little, regular, mini 'crashes' that would reallocate capital to solid businesses and erase bad debt, we have been propping up and preventing (to the best of the central banks ability) any markets' natural attempts to rebalance.

So we've had this enormous, multi-decade boom. 2008 was a chance to correct, and that was not allowed to happen. So now the bust we have will be ferocious and terrible, far worse than 2008 would have been. But there is nothing we can do. We should have taken our economic medicine years ago, and prevented these insane bankers from doing this for their own personal gain.

Central banks were established to 1) ensure a stable currency and 2) to be a lender of last resort. Since when did propping up the stock market become part of their purview? Or ensuring asset prices continue to rise?

If we don't take the medicine now with an economic down turn, then the problem will just grow bigger, and the next time it will be far, far worse. Just as now it is far worse than 2008. We are effectively screwing our children's prospects for our own greedy self interest. You can only kick the can down the road for so long. With each kick it becomes heavier. Its now a boulder. Eventually we'll break our metaphorical foot on it, trying to kick it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra You can't ban $100 bills because huge number of those circulate in countries all around the world, most of them poor. Some families' fortunes consist of a few such bills in countries of Africa or Central Asia.

What's your plan here?

<comment><USER27> The main issue here is actually the 500 euro note, not the $100 bill. The idea is that such notes fund a great deal of terrorist activities overseas, and I sort of agree that we shouldn't have such large denominations.

I would even be okay with getting rid of the $100 bill. Let's face it, people who deal in VERY large amounts of cash $100,000+ are not good people. Drug dealers or politicians (same thing in my opinion) don't use $20 bills as amounts that high get very cumbersome. If you find yourself in a situation with so many $20 bills that you physically can't carry them around, I have literally zero sympathy for you.

Slippery slope? Maybe, but as it stands I have no issue.

<comment><USER28> Do you imagine that one iota of crime would be prevented by making drug lords pack an extra suitcase full of money? If not they why bother.

<comment><USER29> Yes. Carrying an extra suitcase is inconvenient, makes you more stressed and so more prone to making mistakes (or means you have to pay an extra lackey to carry it). None of this makes crime impossible but it raises the cost, which for some people will shift the balance in favour of legitimate business instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> would hate to see the death of cash. it would pretty much mean the entire black market would have nowhere to go. meaning a lot of people would be without an income. of course governments want this, but should they? [http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/01/the-black-market-is- the-s...](http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/01/the-black-market-is-the-second- largest-economy-in-the-world/)

<comment><USER31> Black Markets will find another exchange medium (they already exist) such as laundry detergent.

[http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent- drugs-2013-1/](http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/)

Edit: Article more in line with current discussion:

[https://www.aei.org/publication/markets-in-everything- tide-l...](https://www.aei.org/publication/markets-in-everything-tide-laundry- soap-as-street-currency/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> in this surveillance society, cash is a threat because its still anonymous. Bitcoin is not anonymous!

</comment><comment><USER33> one has to subscribe to see the whole article

</comment><comment><USER34> Non-paywalled version: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-political-war-on- cash-145575...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-political-war-on- cash-1455754850)

<comment><USER34> To down-voters: for me the article posted did appeared pay-walled and I might not have been the only one to encounter it that way! Why the down-vote?

<comment><USER35> Your link doesn't work.

I didn't down vote, because it looks like WSJ is catching onto the game. Going to Google in the usual way doesn't work either.

<comment><USER34> Oh, I see what you mean, WSJ now opens pay-walled for me too, so it become a worthless help from my part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This article is ridiculously biased. The actual reason the EU reps want to phase out the 500€ bill is that according to the latest data, over 90% of those bills are used for criminal activity. Can't look up references well as I'm on the phone, but you read that right: only 10% of the bills are used by regular people. All the rest of it is used by crime syndicates because the larger the bill, the easier it is to move illegal money.

<comment><USER4> Eliminating the 500 EUR would leave the 200 EUR in circulation. Assuming the criminals shift to using that, they'll see a modest 2.5x increase in volume to transport. Somehow I doubt that would be a show stopper.

<comment><USER37> Clearly we should replace Euro notes with Rai Stones[1] :)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Espresso.js – React Meets Backbone for a Minimal MVC - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/techlayer/espresso.js <comment><USER2> The docs are sparse. Can you briefly explain why this is awesome?

I actually use backbone and react right now and love it. I also thought flux was too much, so I'm very interested in a framework like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe it combines the best ideas of React & Flux & Backbone:

\- A small library that you can read and hack easily

\- No templates or HTML/JSX in your JavaScript

\- Models & Collections are small wrappers around Objects & Arrays

\- Declarative DOM representation provides a simple binding between views and models (optional)

\- One-directional data flow

\- Child components are managed automatically (no zombie views)

\- Proper Collection.set performs a smart update without relying on sorting

\- Built-in List component for displaying a list of models

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the author of Mithril.js (another small framework).

This is very nice. I just have a few questions:

\- is it possible to reuse markup from one place in another without copy- paste? (e.g. let's say I have a pagination control that I want to display both above below a table)

\- how would you hook a third party library (e.g. let's say I need to use select2.js or pikaday.js)?

\- is it possible to render things on the fly? (e.g. asynchronous modules) or does all of the HTML need to be on the page on page load?

<comment><AUTHOR> > is it possible to reuse markup from one place in another without copy-paste?

sure, you can just place the markup in a hidden div and clone the node. or you can pass a string as the view name:

new Controller({ view: 'node-id' })

and the framework will do that for you: document.getElementById('node- id').cloneNode(true) and cache the node as well

we typically have a hidden div which contains all re-usable nodes that the app needs

> how would you hook a third party library

you can do anything you want in the init() method, just like backbone. this.view is the view node, and you also have access to this.ref[node-name]. you're not forced to user the render sugar the framework provides at all, eg the List class doesn't use it and updates the DOM imperatively.

> is it possible to render things on the fly

you can always fetch html from the server and do createElement() to generate a node from that, or inject the html/template into the page body. if you prefer to have html templates separate, you can just have your build script inject the templates into the body which makes the app much faster anyway in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> OK, this is an interesting approach. Here are some notes from reading the source:

\- Basic model classes: Model and Collection similar to Backbone, but much simplified (no REST-API stuff, validations etc, it's basically just that events are fired when data is changed)

\- There are no templates, all or most of the markup is already present on the page

\- The Controller class is attached to a DOM element. Specific nodes (called 'refs' as in React) inside this element are denoted by the "data-ref" attribute. These are collected by the controller during init phase and then their state is managed via the render() method.

\- there's a special List controller which can be connected to a Collection. It manages a list of sub-Controllers (each attached to an item in the Collection)

I like the simplicity. It's very similar to what I'm using lately for smaller projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> May I add one more point:

\- the render() method provides a way to declare what the DOM looks like (React-style) OR manipulate the DOM imperatively (Backbone style)

This helps the Flux one-directional data flow, which you can see in the ToDo example. Controller's model is actually its internal state by default, so all data mutation must go through the main data store.

Thank you so much for boiling it down to the key points, I've been struggling to explain the details clearly. Really the best way to understand what's going on is to read the ToDo app as it's only 100 lines.

We are using this for PhoneGap and node-webkit apps, it's a perfect for for mobiles where you need fine-grained control over memory and performance, and you know the runtime you're developing against (webkit) so there isn't a goal to get this running across every browser like React or Backbone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So how does this compare to actually using React/Flux? It looks like all the virtual DOM stuff no longer exists, which seems to me like you would lose a lot of the niceties of React. Why not just use the actual Flux architecture with Backbone as stores and React as the view?

<comment><AUTHOR> Few benefits:

\- no need to diff the whole DOM tree

\- no need to write JSX, you can simply use DOM nodes

the render() method still gives you _most_ of the niceties of React, ie a declarative view of your DOM, without the nasty inclusion of HTML inside your JS controllers.

PS ToDoMVC performance benchmark shows the to-do app to be about 3-4x faster than React.

<comment><USER6> My guess is the performance benchmarks would be much different if you are dealing with an app with a high number of nodes where the diff/repainting benefits of React really kick in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Espresso.js diffs as well, except it doesn't have to diff the entire DOM but only the attributes that you'll actually be changing in effect.

Moreover it gives you the option between declaratively specifying the DOM to imperatively manipulating it when you need to for performance reasons.

It's a tiny library and the approach is much more efficient than diffing the virtual DOM for the entire page, so I'm pretty confident that results would actually be even better in larger apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This definitely seems like something I'd like to use and also contribute to if you are interested. One question I have is, how do you imagine routing being done? I don't see it in the examples so I was curious if you have ideas about this.

<comment><AUTHOR> ToDo example actually has simple routing. I'm using this mostly for PhoneGap projects so don't even use routing, but any routing library should work same way as in Backbone, eg:

[https://github.com/flatiron/director](https://github.com/flatiron/director)

Thanks, would be happy to accept contributions!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looking at the todo example, I don't see any of the usual React code for creating/managing components...

Is it just React the pattern (without the component part)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Controllers are equivalent to React's components. the render() method lets you include child controllers:

[https://cdn.rawgit.com/techlayer/espresso.js/master/docs/ind...](https://cdn.rawgit.com/techlayer/espresso.js/master/docs/index.html#controllers/render)

<comment><USER8> Yup, I totally missed the docs -- my mistake, was too hasty

Would be nice if docs were higher up on the README though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It doesn't look like there's any separation between the model and the view, so in what sense is this MVC?

<comment><USER10> It's not MVC. There are no controllers, and data in a Backbone app does not flow in a circular fashion. I consider Backbone views describable as presenters, and Backbone describable with the Model-View-Presenter (MVP) pattern.

MVP diagram: [http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/files/2011/12/NewImage2.p...](http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/files/2011/12/NewImage2.png)

Why Backbone is not MVC: [http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/12/23/backbone-js- is...](http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/12/23/backbone-js-is-not-an- mvc-framework/)

<comment><USER9> Not sure if your comment is directed towards me or the OP. However, there is in fact a Controller class in this project, so you may be confusing this framework for vanilla Backbone?

<comment><USER11> There is a Controller class, but in the demo app you can see that both App and ToDoItem extend Controller, which makes be believe that Controller is perhaps not what you'd expect.

Having said that, I much prefer Backbones presenter idiom over MVC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> this is so gud</comment>


Government Lab Admits to Using Quantum Internet for Two Years - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/government-lab-admits-to-using-quantum-internet-for-two-493293340

<comment><USER2> While this might work for small networks, and indeed appears to provide a considerable increase in security there, I doubt that this can easily be extended to the whole internet – after all, the usual problem is not that some evil person peeks into an Ethernet cable, but rather that some router (at your ISP, the other party's ISP or anywhere in between) is compromised. This approach effectively requires all routers (of the quantum messages, that is) to be 'trusted nodes'.

So, cool, but, yeah…</comment>