The greatest migration: the history and mystery of Polynesian navigation (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-reviews-thompson-explores-the-history-and-mystery-of-polynesian-navigation/ <comment><USER2> Decent article, though a little thin on details. For example, alludes to but doesn't mention Polynesian wayfinding techniques, which are quite fascinating. The Polynesians developed some really clever nautical wayfinding techniques without instruments, or with rudimentary, imprecise, non-machined ones, that enabled them to reliably traverse the islands of the South Pacific, even to remote ones like Tahiti. Lots of articles on "Polynesian wayfinding" across the web, and a great exhibition on it at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu in case you happen to be in the vicinity.

[https://www.bishopmuseum.org/?s=wayfind](https://www.bishopmuseum.org/?s=wayfind)

Probably the best observation in the article, is the way theories can potentially become distorted the further away in time they are from their subject of study:

 _> GAZETTE: The book deals also with the flip side of that wondrousness, the Western skepticism that an "unsophisticated," "primitive" people could manage this feat. What underlies Western skepticism? Was it also wonder at the distances involved? Or was it rooted in racism, in ignorance? Why not just take folks at their word when they say they did it?

THOMPSON: There was a lot of skepticism, and I think that was basically rooted in a sense of Western superiority and classic colonialism and that set of attitudes. But one of the things that I think is misunderstood is that this was not a uniform view. There are periods, at the end of the 18th century and in the 19th century, when Europeans who were interested in this subject were actually not that skeptical at all of Polynesian voyaging capacity.

Some of the 19th-century figures I write about took for granted — completely — that Polynesians had been the greatest navigators ever. They were convinced that they had sailed these distances and they had gone back and forth repeatedly.

What I saw that sort of surprised me, because it ran contrary to the conventional wisdom, was a rise in skepticism in the 20th century. My interpretation is that this is because we're actually moving away from understanding the people. We're moving away in time from real contact with the islanders and a real understanding of what they were doing.

The earlier theorists of the 19th century had many bad ideas, but they did believe in Polynesian voyaging. And they were quite close to the people. They spoke the languages. They often married into these cultures. They were intimate with them. And they lived in a period before there was so much lost knowledge. So that was an interesting aspect of the story that I didn't foresee._

<comment><USER3> > Why not just take folks at their word when they say they did it?

It is entirely reasonable to expect evidence of extraordinary claims before accepting them as genuine.

> a rise in skepticism in the 20th century

And a huge rise in scientific understanding and technological progress because of a willingness to expect evidence rather than taking things on faith.

<comment><USER4> > It is entirely reasonable to expect evidence of extraordinary claims before > accepting them as genuine.

I would say that the Polynesian inhabitants of Aotearoa New Zealand, Ha'waii, and Rapa Nui/Easter Island are all the evidence one needs.

<comment><USER3> That is indeed evidence they got there by boat, although before DNA comparison it wasn't clear where they came from. (DNA sequencing has revolutionized determining where people came from and who various groups are related to.) It is not sufficient evidence of repeatable navigational skills. Setting out in a boat and luckily happening upon an island is very different from reliably navigating back and forth.

There are modern examples of people in lifeboats drifting incredible distances in the Pacific, with zero navigation.

People didn't accept that the Wrights had flown, either, until the evidence was indisputable. And rightly so, as it was an extraordinary accomplishment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did my MS thesis around this exact topic, a VR simulation of Native Hawaiian Wayfinding: [https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/pres_a_0030...](https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/pres_a_00301)

It should be available for download sometime this year, currently working on the HTC Vive, being ported to the Oculus platform.

Also actively participating with the Polynesian Voyaging Society here in Honolulu to prep for participation in a Tahiti sail later this year.

</comment><comment><USER6> I happened to read "Sea People" this past fall, and it's one that I'd recommend to anyone interested in more or less any of the areas it touches on. The author took an approach of not just explaining what information was learned, but the how it was learned, and did so in a way that I felt made things really accessible, though not at the expense of making things hand-wavy in her explanation (imho, anyway).

Polynesian exploration and the logistics involved (both from a Polynesian and European point of view), interaction between dissimilar cultures trying to understand each other, historical re-creation, and more, plus some of what I think is simply good writing. It's not a topic I'd looked into much beforehand, but found it a really interesting and enjoyable read. If anyone finds that the interview in the article sparks an interest, I think you could definitely do worse.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've wondered if the geography of Polynesia didn't help in this regard. The area is a series of small islands out in a big ocean. People who wanted to move between the islands would gain a lot of experience in sea navigation in whatever their ships of the day were. Enough experience plus the human desire to explore means longer trips could mostly be a factor in how much food and fresh water you can pack with you.

By comparison their contemporaries had the luxury of being on the same landmass so they could stick to coastal waters and inland seas for the entire journey. They were not forced to learn the harsh lessens of the open oceans until much later so they have this mindset that open ocean sailing is a monumental feat that requires advanced technology.

As for why it was lost. The article speculates that it was climate change, but I think the lack of a system of writing is probably even more to blame. Some disaster kills off the school of deep ocean navigation and the skills are lost as the old sailors die off.

<comment><USER8> >As for why it was lost. The article speculates that it was climate change, but I think the lack of a system of writing is probably even more to blame. Some disaster kills off the school of deep ocean navigation and the skills are lost as the old sailors die off.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. When James Cook came through Polynesia, he brought syphilis which ravaged the populations of Tahiti, Hawaii, and others - weakening oral tradition of passing down information. Also, when europeans first came, they were overall very un-interested in preserving any oral history, and mostly just colonised and fucked over the local populations - playing out the classic tropes of colonisation.

<comment><USER7> European colonialists are definitely a type of disaster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One lingering question I have for all migrations in antiquity is why (given very low pop density)?

I'm sure some were for the sake of exploration (maybe wanderlust). But in the vast Pacific if you wanted tropical abundance you had the Indonesian archipelago. Why bother to search for low density land like Micronesia, etc?

Did people just overhunt and overfish so they had to move on before agriculture took hold?

<comment><USER4> Polynesian culture didn't develop in Indonesia though. And as evidenced by the history of Indonesia, the various cultures there aren't overly good at living and let live.

Polynesians had agriculture, but they also had limited natural resources on account of, well, living on islands, and limited arable land. They developed extensive trade networks to overcome these resource limitations[0], but their migrations tended to occur when overpopulation led to warfare.

On the agriculture - fun fact, the staple crop of the Polynesians who settled New Zealand was kumara - a sweet potato. Sweet potatoes being native to South America.

[0][https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a21796/ancient-p...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a21796/ancient- polynesian-trade-routes-extended-for-thousands-of-miles/)

<comment><USER10> Bonus fun fact: kumara is a loan word taken from kumar, which was it's native name in South America.

<comment><USER4> Oh wow, that is indeed a fun fact, I did not know that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As an addition to the above - New Zealand was the last major place in the world to be settled by humans, in around 900AD, by Polynesians who had left Taiwan (according to recent DNA evidence), traveled across the Northern Pacific, likely reached the Americas (there's some archaeological evidence though controversial) and back across the Southern Pacific to NZ - they had maps and could repeat their journeys

<comment><USER12> From my reading on this subject, the sweet potato is what enabled the settling of New Zealand. It came from South America, and one of the stable trade routes in eastern Polynesia did run along South America.

"Pathway of the Birds" is the best reference available today on all this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > So the idea of going out and back, out and back, out and back, in a radial > pattern — or something like that — is not so improbable. And if you were a > person who expects there to be an island, who knows that islands are in > chains and believes that you will find another island and that there will be > another island beyond that, then the question is basically, "How long is it > going to take to find the next one?"

That's the fascinating bit for me. Being an exceptional navigator is one thing, but finding some of those tiny specks of land in a massive ocean in the first place is really something incredible.

<comment><USER4> If you read into traditional Polynesian navigation techniques, they were very good at inferring the existence and direction of far off land based on birds, wave patterns etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Well, I have a real soft spot for Captain Cook.

The man who "discovered" all these islands... islands that already had people on them... and then (according to the botanist on his ship Georg Forster) engaged in pedophilia, raping the children they found. They often took girls as young as 9 and 10, rationalising that this was acceptable because "Polynesian girls were sooner ripe".

> We went for eight weeks all over Polynesia

Wow, eight weeks in six or seven nations, and then writing with such authority on the subject. Tourists spend more time in one locality than she did.

And the use of "Polynesia" again. There are three groupings in the Pacific. The greatest sailing vessel of all was the Drua, developed in Fiji by Melanesians, not Polynesians. It could carry over 200 people. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drua)

<comment><USER4> > and then (according to the botanist on his ship Georg Forster) engaged in > pedophilia, raping the children they found

Citation needed for claims Captain Cook raped kids.

> And the use of "Polynesia" again.

Polynesia is a well established area, google Polynesian triangle to learn more. Yeah, there are three main language and genetic groups in the Pacific - Micronesian, Melanesian, Polynesian, but the Polynesians are the focus of this article because they're far more widely dispersed.

> The greatest sailing vessel of all was the Drua, developed in Fiji by > Melanesians

No doubt. And it was rapidly adopted by the Tongans, Polynesians that had regular contact with the Fijians. Much how the Polynesians rapidly adopted the sweet potato of South America. The fact that they built a big ocean going canoe does nothing to detract from the navigational exploits of the Polynesians.

<comment><USER14> "South Sea Maidens: Western Fantasy and Sexual Politics in the South Pacific" \- By Michael Sturma

[https://www.amazon.com/South-Sea-Maidens-Politics- Contributi...](https://www.amazon.com/South-Sea-Maidens-Politics- Contributions/dp/0313316740)

IIRC that part is based on the diary of Georg Forster, who was the botanist aboard Cook's 2nd voyage.

Cook and his savages wreaked havok on the islands they came into contact with. Abductions, pedophilia and rape, and the diseases they brought decimated the populations.

<comment><USER4> Nothing in Forster's diaries about Cook himself indulging yeah?

<comment><USER14> Not as far as I know, but that's not a distinction worth making. It's not a stretch to assume a man of as few scruples as he had also indulged his base instincts. And even if he didn't, these men were under his direct command and supervision, and performed these crimes with his foreknowledge.

Hitler (inb4 Poe's law) didn't personally drag people into gas chambers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The most logical answer is that they have a tradition of migrating. These > are people who have been moving for a couple of thousand years. They have > been migrating from island to island and they keep migrating until they run > out of places to migrate to.

While their ocean wayfinding skills were doubtless incredible, I have a hard time believing they migrated for the sake of migration.

Most human migrations away from an existing settlement are motivated by the tips of the spears of those who hold power in the settlement, ultimately by population exceeding the resources available.

People still ultimately prefer the relative security of the settlement to the dangers of the wilds, and usually only venture out into the latter when they have no other choice.

Obviously this applies less to nomadic groups, but even in that case the group is really a mobile settlement.

<comment><USER16> The motivation certainly seems to mainly have been finding new places to live:

> While the early Polynesians were skilled navigators, most evidence indicates > that their primary exploratory motivation was to ease the demands of > burgeoning populations. Polynesian mythology does not speak of explorers > bent on conquest of new territories, but rather of heroic discoverers of new > lands for the benefit of those who voyaged with them.

Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_culture#Development...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_culture#Development_in_isolation:_\(c._700_to_1595\))

> People still ultimately prefer the relative security of the settlement to > the dangers of the wilds, and usually only venture out into the latter when > they have no other choice.

From what I've seen, the opposite is true, at least for a subset of people who prefer to travel and explore. These people usually move again after their new land is fully established. They just like the frontier.

<comment><USER15> > From what I've seen, the opposite is true, at least for a subset of people > who prefer to travel and explore. These people usually move again after > their new land is fully established. They just like the frontier.

Most of the European migration to the United States was by people who were either refugees (the first Puritan settlers, Jews fleeing persecution), starving (Irish and Southern Europan immigrants), or forcefully evicted from their homes (Scottish peasants after the Highland Clearances [1]).

Even within the US, groups that we think of as pioneering westward, like the Mormons, were fundamentally fleeing persecution. According to the Latter Day Saints' history (as explained to me by the tour guide at the Church's HQ in Salt Lake City's), it was legal in NY state to kill Mormons in the early days of their community - thus triggering their series of migrations west ultimately to what we call Utah today.

Others westward American pioneers were landless and destitute as the arable lands of the eastern seaboard were all held by wealthy estates. Their options were to stay in near-serfdom or move west.

Among them no doubt were a few who migrated just for the sake of adventure. But most people were moving just to survive.

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

<comment><USER17> It was "legal" to kill Mormons in the sense that a jury might decline to convict the killers. They had a pretty brutal time at Nauvoo, Illinois, as well.

Much the largest part of Scottish emigration to America was from the Lowlands --there were just a lot more people in the Lowlands than in the Highlands. And the German emigration mostly wasn't of refugees or the starving.

<comment><USER15> > Much the largest part of Scottish emigration to America was from the > Lowlands--there were just a lot more people in the Lowlands than in the > Highlands.

The Highlands were much more populated before than after the Clearances. They were cleared to make space for industrial scale sheep farming. Many of those evicted Highlanders spent a time in the oversubscribed Lowland cities before moving on to the American colonies.

> And the German emigration mostly wasn't of refugees or the starving.

> And the German emigration mostly wasn't of refugees or the starving.

I'm not so sure about that.

From [https://www.deutschland.de/en/usa/us-immigration-americas- ge...](https://www.deutschland.de/en/usa/us-immigration-americas-german-roots) :

"German emigration to the USA began at the end of the 17th century when Germany was suffering from the after-effects of the bloody religious conflicts of the Thirty Years' War, and Christian minorities were being persecuted. Many farmers lived in poverty, their very existence threatened by failed harvests and land shortages, so many decided to leave for a country that appeared to offer both freedom and prosperity. That country was America."

"The situation in Germany worsened when the start of industrialisation caused the population to grow dramatically. In the mid-19th century, around three quarters of farmers did not have enough land to make a living, hence they began migrating in huge numbers from 1816 – the start of official German mass emigration to the USA."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> They never stopped voyaging. A dwindling number trained navigators are trying to pass their skills on.

<comment><USER5> Indeed; various communities around the Pacific are working on continuing this tradition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title is a little inaccurate (and dismissive), the mystery isn't about how Polynesian navigation worked - the mystery has more to do with the DNA origins of the people of Polynesian.

I really recommend reading the story of Tupia to learn more about how Polynesian Navigation actually worked. He was a priest and navigator who joined James Cook's ship and essentially helped him discover many more islands than they ever would. It also shows how much of a dick James was in the end.

[https://www.amazon.com/Tupaia-Remarkable-Captain- Polynesian-...](https://www.amazon.com/Tupaia-Remarkable-Captain-Polynesian- Navigator/dp/1459672097)

</comment><comment><USER19> On this topic I suggest "We,the navigators" by David Lewis.

<comment><USER5> "Hawaiki Rising" by Sam Low is also an excellent read.

<comment><USER20> I have just happened to read it. While I find the technical parts of navigation of Nainoa Thompson and Mau Piailug highly interesting, large parts of the book are concerned with Hawaiian or Polynesian identity. Would you have a suggestion for a much more technical oriented book on Polynesian (or Micronesian) navigation? Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Three related threads from 2019:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19352806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19352806)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19450799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19450799)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20124949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20124949)

Others?

</comment><comment><USER12> For those who are interested in this subject, the right book to go read is "Pathway of the Birds," which is a summary of the research to date. We know a _lot_ now about this.

</comment><comment><USER22> "your earlier book, "Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All" "

yeah, nah.</comment>


Lilium Aviation is going to make flying cars a reality - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/05/atomico-backs-backs-new-vertical-take-off-and-landing-flight-developer-lilium-aviation/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR: >Lilium will do its first full-scale test-flights in the next year, but has no timeframe for full production on its vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER3> how do they think those tiny fans are going to generate enough thrust to fly that?</comment>


HTTP/2 Protocol for iOS Push Notifications - <AUTHOR> https://dblog.laulkar.com/http2-protocol-for-apns.html <comment><USER2> For anyone who's not familiar with APNs, this new protocol is a huge improvement. Since it uses HTTP/2, you can just use an existing HTTP library (which should handle reusing the connection for multiple notifications, too).

Here's an example client that I wrote in Go for a client that _doesn 't_ have access to an HTTP/2 library. It listens for JSON on stdin. I highlighted the guts:

[https://github.com/Sidnicious/pushprovider/blob/49b1f6329522...](https://github.com/Sidnicious/pushprovider/blob/49b1f63295229e620bc135e8028c3ef88ff81984/pushprovider.go#L53-L107)

<comment><USER3> > "example client that I wrote in Go for a client that doesn't have access to > an HTTP/2 library"

on line 62 you do specify HTTP/2: Transport: &http2.Transport

> "Since it uses HTTP/2, you can just use an existing HTTP library (which > should handle reusing the connection for multiple notifications, too)."

I doubt many non-HTTP/2 implementations will keep connections open and continually check for more data - why wait and read for Response(s) if no Requests were sent? Let alone an HTTP version sent they do not understand.

<comment><USER2> That was confusing. The second "client" means "a company for whom I did programming work". Their environment doesn't support HTTP/2 directly, so I wrote this standalone tool. By "existing HTTP library", I mean one which supports HTTP/2 — instead of a special-purpose library for talking to APNs over its old binary protocol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has anyone used this successfully yet from Python? It seems like the Hyper library should be able to talk to it, but that comes with a very strong "hyper is in a very early alpha" warning: [http://hyper.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](http://hyper.readthedocs.org/en/latest/)

<comment><USER5> I'm interested in contributors who would be willing to implement it in Django Push Notifications: [https://github.com/jleclanche/django-push- notifications](https://github.com/jleclanche/django-push-notifications)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> While the old binary protocol has its deficiencies, they could have been addressed with relatively minor changes. The plus side with the old protocol is that the message format itself is very simple to generate and parse. Now I have to drag an HTTP/2 library into my notification server and deal with a much more complex protocol where the vast majority of that complexity is completely unnecessary.

</comment><comment><USER7> This will be very helpful for enterprise environments which have an HTTP proxy for external URLs. I'm guessing this improvement wouldn't need a socks proxy since this is no longer a socket protocol?

</comment><comment><USER8> The old APNs flow seemed overly complex, especially in comparison to GCM. This seems like a big improvement.

Does anyone know why Apple uses certificates instead of API keys (a la GCM) for authorization?

<comment><USER9> Because it's fundamentally different and more secure.

Apple's model uses a public/private key pair: the private key never leaves your server and Apple doesn't know it. Apple only knows the public key, in the form of a cert. Apple actually writes about the trust model in the docs: [https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Networ...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Chapters/ApplePushService.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH100-SW11).

Google's model uses a shared secret (the API key) that both the client and server know.

Having worked with both systems, I prefer the ease of the shared secret model, but each system uses a fundamentally different security model.</comment></comment>


Is it possible to be a polymath these days? - <AUTHOR> http://ask.metafilter.com/107554/Is-it-possible-to-be-a-polymath-these-days <comment><USER2> Once a polymath is discovered to be highly capable they are quickly seduced down a narrower path that generates the most revenue.

</comment><comment><USER3> My father was an architect and he once challenged me to find an area of study that he didn't need to know anything about, and as of yet I haven't. Designing a church? You better know something of the religion. An arena? You should understand the sport, otherwise how do you optimize the sight lines? A pharmaceutical factory? You need a good grasp of chemistry to design a safe environment. And then there are the studies of human psychology and interaction that should help inform the design of any structure as well as your requisite art, history, design, math and engineering knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hasn't the amount of knowledge in math, science, and engineering been growing exponentially whereas our capability to learn and teach is still mostly linear?

Edit: Should also mention Malcolm Gladwell's recent book which posits that it takes on the order of 10000 hours to become an "expert" at something.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/15/malcolm- gladwell...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/15/malcolm-gladwell- outliers-extract)

<comment><USER5> Argh... it's not Gladwell's book that posits the 10000 hours bit -- it's from Ericsson's research!

<comment><USER6> Gladwell is so popular now that we'd better get used to this. Gladwell himself has lamented the phenomenon, but there's no stopping it, I fear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks to the internet you can become an expert on any topic within a week or so.

<comment><USER8> You have a liberal definition of expert.

<comment><USER7> True - I was only half joking, though. With the internet we really can browse through new topics outside of our field very quickly. Not to become experts, but to find specific aspects of other areas of research that might apply to our problem.

Who knows what Leonardo would have done with the internet...

<comment><USER8> I definitely do know a lot about a lot of things now. I do often fear becoming a jack of all trades, master of none though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You probably can't know everything, but you can work in several separate and not very closely related fields.

</comment><comment><USER10> It depends on what you mean by "polymath" specifically, but I always think of the multi-talent programmers and artists. PG designed Viaweb and also is an essayist and breakthrough investor, for instance. One of my favorite authors, Daniel Handler, played accordion with the Magnetic Fields and he's a pretty excellent singer as well.

<comment><USER11> When I think polymath, Ludwig Wittgenstein comes to mind. He was a successful mechanical engineer, received his PhD in philosophy based on the notebook he kept during World War I, taught philosophy, taught grammar school (though, admittedly, that didn't work out so well), and designed a house for his sister.

I'm not trying to belittle others, like PG, who clearly are knowledgeable (and skilled) at many things, but given the genesis of the term, I think the entry bar is pretty high.

<comment><USER10> PG was the first example I could think of that seemed to fit. I agree: there are people who are certainly more renaissance than him. That was just the first name that came to mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes, but it's very, very hard. It always was.

In da Vinci's time, how many people could imagine a flying machine in a time when machines of any type were extraordinarily rare and expensive?

In 2008, most people in the developed world have the opportunities to excel that were almost unattainable 500 years ago, so the standards of nominal accomplishment are higher. Developing blueprints for a new style of flying machine is now an amateur's task; to be a world-changer, you have to build and market one. Or for another example, to work at the cutting edge of physics, you'll probably need access to expensive resources so you can test and refine your theories. This means that a lot more time and energy are sucked up by unglamorous tasks (e.g. raising money, or proving yourself in order to secure access to the choice labs).

In the Renaissance, few had any opportunities to excel, but those who did could get started right away. In modern times, there are a lot more brilliant contenders, but it takes longer to acquire the material and social resources necessary in order to get to work on the front lines.

However, the standards of creativity and aesthetic genius have not gone up nearly as fast. Shakespeare would still be considered a great writer today; and da Vinci, a great painter.</comment>


The Mental Impact of Tech Interviews - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrKC41NwC0 <comment><USER2> tech interviews are utterly exhausting.

stop me if this seems familiar:

you interview with some company, no luck. you think to yourself, "ah, I should spend some more time going through Sedgewick, that priority queue problem didn't go so well. that was probably what did me in."

you interview with another company, no luck. this time you think, "hmm, they seemed heavy on probability and statistics. i should brush up on that too. how could i have forgotten the 68-95-99 rule for normal distributions! how silly of me..."

but it's not just the interviews, though they're a keen reflection of the nature of the industry.

since jumping is the only way to keep getting decent raises, you go through this process with several companies, every couple years or so! and eventually you have this long list of things you absolutely have to be grand wizard at -- because who knows exactly what you'll be asked each time? -- much of which you don't really use on the job, and thus you have to waste^H^H^H^H^H spend your time studing in the evenings.

not to mention that this is the only industry where experience actually counts against you. you are competing with people who are fresh out of college ... and, oftentimes, being _interviewed by_ people fresh out of college.

fuck it. i should've been a business major.</comment>


The Struggles of New York City's Taxi King - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion-king/

<comment><USER2> "Seven years later came Bloomberg's introduction of green cabs designed primarily to reach the underserved outer boroughs. Prohibited from picking up customers in Manhattan's central business district, they were nonetheless despised by the yellow cab industry. Freidman sued, contending the new law allowing green cabs was unconstitutional. The courts ultimately disagreed."

This right here is why I hope Uber and other services like them burn the NYC cab industry to the ground. The cab industry in NY treats people like crap if you don't live in midtown. Especially if you live in a minority community. I lived in Harlem when that fight was happening and was astounded by the argument the cab commission put up. They admitted they don't go to minority communities because of violence but they do not want anyone else to service the area either.

My ex was riding home with two white coworkers from her job. They were getting dropped off in the 60's block and she was getting dropped off in Harlem. The cab driver knew that. He dropped off the first two and drove a block up and old my ex to get out of the car. He wasn't driving to Harlem. That is just one of several messed up NYC cab stories. I just stopped taking them and went green car only.

The cab industry is crappy to a lot of the community in NYC. They deserve everything that they are getting right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Planet Money had an interesting episode about him recently: [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/31/428157211/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/31/428157211/episode-643-the- taxi-king)

</comment><comment><USER4> _During the Depression, thousands of jobless men became taxi drivers. As a result, the number of cabs ballooned, and suddenly there weren't enough passengers to scoop up. The industry became as hopelessly unprofitable as any other._

Is that really true? If so, what makes the cab business so different than every other business where limits aren't put on the number of sellers?

If there were too many cabs and it became unprofitable, then you'd expect the supply to dwindle until it was profitable for some.

The whole safety thing is a different regulatory issue. I could understand trying to keep passengers safe.

<comment><USER5> Cabs are a vital part of NYC transportation. Too many cabs will clog up streets causing traffic.

There are other reasons to regulate. To prevent predatory pricing. Without set prices cab drivers would start ripping people off. You can see the trouble with this with Uber's surge pricing. I needed a cab home from the airport but Uber wanted 4X pricing. Luckly cabs still exist, but in 5 years they might not. My 80 buck fare would be 320 bucks.

A lot of pro uber folks want to pretend that taxi regulations are purely protectionist. But it's really just quid pro quo. You can't tell cab drivers what to charge and make them drive people to anywhere in the city. They might not be profitable. Limiting supply is consultation price.

Well now that deal is done since cities allow Uber to compete with them unregulated.

I think the only real solution is to deregulate cabs. But a lot of people are going to be pissed when their cabbie informs them of surge pricing or that he doesn't deliver to certain areas.

<comment><USER4> I see your point but Uber is unregulated and it seems to be working fine. I'm not sure that cabs stick out as an industry that particularly needs this level of regulation.

<comment><USER6> > I see your point but Uber is unregulated and it seems to be working fine.

They violate transportation laws flagrantly in most jurisdictions. That's not "unregulated", that's breaking the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have no sympathy whatsoever. He still owes on loans taken to purchase medallions. If things get a little worse this lowlife is surely going to walk away from those loans. If I were uber I'd offer to buy them for the pennies they may soon be worth.

>>After breakfast, Freidman walks two blocks east to his temporary digs at Trump Park Avenue on 59th Street. (Sandra is occupying the $4.8 million master residence six blocks north.) After he retrieves a Chihuahua named Harry from upstairs—he signs his e-mails "Yes I Am a Dog Lover" or "adopt-a-pet.com"—the plan is to hop into his Ferrari and zip over to one of his several garages in Queens. Not that he wants that written: "Honestly, I would love the piece not to be about 'We had breakfast at Cipriani, then we walked over to his Park Avenue apartment, then we got into his Ferrari.'

This pic says more than the article ever could: [http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion- king/i...](http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion- king/img/feat_taxi36__05.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER8> Rant: Uber's shitty navigation is as we speak taking me on a detour through south DC trying to get from foggy bottom to union station. Second time this week (last time it was a random detour to Virginia).

I use Uber all the time, of course, because it's so cheap, but people talking about self-driving Uber cars always makes me chuckle.

<comment><USER5> Uber routes me through an alley for absolutely no reason every time I take it to work.

<comment><USER8> I love how the only option to get your route reviewed is "my driver took a poor route." There should be a "your navigation is inbred" option.

<comment><USER9> I see this regularly, it's pretty insane: if I do uberPool, my route home typically involves an illegal (but safe) right turn into a do-not-enter / buses-only street followed by an illegal left turn the wrong way up a one-way street.

I also tried it once when I actually got matched to another fare (a first) - the route was going to take us within ~3 blocks of my home but then go 20 minutes further to drop off the other fare and then 20 minutes back on the same route. (I got out when the car was stopped at a red light and walked).

AND YET FOR SOME STRANGE REASON I STILL FIND UBER INFINITELY SUPERIOR TO TAXICABS. FUNNY THAT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Certainly a good object lesson in the bite of leverage over long periods of time. As in it's a very bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> If cities are going to allow open competition from uber and lyft, they need to remove the regulation on cab drivers.

</comment><comment><USER11> Burn baby burn.

Seriously.

If there's a paragon of entitlement, this guy is it.</comment>


Show HN: iOS app. Snooze this alarm clock and it will humiliate you on Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/betterme/id593717331?ls=1&mt=8

<comment><USER2> And by "humiliate you of Facebook" they mean "spam your friends with messages that'll quickly cause all posts from the app to be hidden." (I invariably hide all posts from apps anyway.) And, honestly, I don't find "Mike was too weak willed to wake up this morning" to be at all humiliating, and certainly not something I think my friends would even care about. Perhaps if you could queue up any text you like, with something _truly_ embarrassing, like revealing your deep dark love for Justin Bieber or something, that might be more useful and interesting.

<comment><USER3> Same here. Why should I care if my friends hit the snooze button? I hit the snooze button myself regularly, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. --I love that 10 minutes of relaxation where I know I'm allowing myself to be comfortable before I actually have to get up and get ready for the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice idea, but i guess that maybe the message might be a little too generic. Why not have a random message appearing every day to make it a little more fun for all your friends?

E.g.

* "Your friend John has probably been reading Hacker News all night and didn't get up on time this morning"

* "Once again, your friend Suzanne could not get herself to hit the snooze button this morning. Please post stupid comments on this post."

* "Bob is in dreamland right now instead of on his work. Please call his boss and tell him."

;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this a lot. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know - just telling my facebook friends that I couldn't get out of bed in the morning? Sounds too mundane and even relate-able. "Oh Jim didn't get out of bed again," big fucking deal right?

Let's up the stakes here. You know what alarm I would never fuck with? The one that's about to "like" a certain fetish video on redtube or youporn.

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL, that's insanity wolf territory. I'm not sure if I can handle that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think a more interesting problem to solve is how to get someone out of bed more pleasantly and with less sleep inertia. Something like the philips natural light alarms are a step in the right direction.

TBH, I would kill to have the entire ceiling of my bedroom covered in a planar array of natural light bulbs that gradually light up at the time I need to get up and I want them to reach the full intensity of the midday sun in the Sahara.

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe it would be a good idea to appeal on facebook to the user's friends to text/call/Dm them to wake them up.

The people i know who need something like this would sleep through public, humiliation, fire... But if the phone was ringing repeatedly... and it was their actual friends that they might not have heard from in awhile, they would wake up for that. Maybe you could even make it easy (click here) to call them with one of those phone call APIs or something.

Probably best to encourage them to only use this when they really need to wake up. Or maybe it happens after the 3rd of so snooze...

I actually like this idea. Let me know if you want help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback damon_c. A friend of mine had similar ideas. I'd love to add features like this. I can use all the help I can get. Can you shoot me an email email@example.com, or I can contact you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe with some quick retooling, this could be both a useful and a popular app.

Before sending off the FB message, record both the desired wake up time and the actual wake up time (which would be the time that the alarm was formally turned off as opposed to snooze). Store both values (and the date) in a spreadsheet.

And then give the user a quick visualization/dashboard of how well he/she has been doing. Maybe after 7 days straight of successful wake ups, the user sends a FB message that is congratulatory. After a month, the F message contains a summary of how well he/she did.

So, in other words, provide both thhe useful analytics and the ability to over share :)

<comment><USER9> Sleep Cycle for the iPhone tracks and graphs quite a bit of useful information and may provide many of the features you're looking for. (Note it uses the phone's accelerometer for sleep tracking, so be wary your partner/bed may skew data - i haven't studied the effects). You can get some raw data, and it plots some commonly asked datasets. At the very least, it can provide a quick way to collect data and correlate what may cause a lousy night's sleep (beer and D&D for example).

It doesn't embarrass you publicly on Facebook, but I'd personally write that off as a feature.

<comment><USER10> I've been using Sleep Cycle for a couple of weeks, and it works well and it's interesting to see graphs of your sleep quality. Makes me feel like Stephen Wolfram, who I would just assume has been doing the same:

[http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal- analytic...](http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytics-of- my-life/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To be honest, this facebook sharing idea would actually encourage you to snooze the clock rather than wake up, so you would be curious to see what kind of reactions it would provoke within your friends' circles. If you want this app to become popular, then you're doing it right. If you really don't want someone to snooze the alarm, then this isn't the way it should be, maybe ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> I had this roommate in uni with the loudest alarm clock. One day, he hit snooze in the neighborhood of the lower double digits while I was trying to sleep. Hacker fix: turn off the circuit breaker to the room. Sleep ensues.

</comment><comment><USER13> These apps, albeit being really "cool", make me uneasy. I agree that it uses negative reinforcement to help you get your sleeping habits in shape, but I do not like the idea of an app punishing your laziness by making a mockery of you in front of your friends and the world. Is sleeping not supposed to be a private affair? Do we really want to notify the world of our sleeping habits?

Moreover, would you really like to see YOUR wall flooded with "Your friend, "XYZ" is a lazy-ass!" feeds as soon as you wake up?

<comment><AUTHOR> I see you point, and with the advents of social media there is very little left for privacy. I suppose though in the end its a matter of personal choice. No one is forcing you to use these app.

I built this app because I wanted the extra motivation in the mornings. So far it's been working. I wake up with a smile on my face knowing that I won't be bothering my friends, and that now I have no choice but to get up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice job!

Also nice for us to see. Five years ago we (sleep.fm) asked for feedback here (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=75323>) about our alarm clock that is social. Since then we have witnessed many similar apps, some using same theme , some going a different route in making the alarm clock social. All makes us smile and compels us to continue on.

Good luck to you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words! I hope your app reaches the success you hope for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Related article for those trying to rise early: <http://zenhabits.net/how-i- became-early-riser/>

I found the two most helpful things are to go outside within 10 minutes of waking up (even if it's really cold!) and to focus on going to bed 8-9 hours before I want to wake up, whether sleepy or not.

<comment><USER16> I don't think any of that is particularly good advice. The best way to adjust is to stay up an hour later every day until you reach your goal. (So if you go to bed at 6am, take two weeks to adjust that to 8pm.)

This avoids any sleepiness during the process, except maybe for that last hour. I did this successfully late last year, but ruined it by volunteering to help out at an overnight hackathon somewhere in the middle. Oh well.

<comment><USER15> Seriously? So to start waking up at 6 instead of 9, you should take a 3 week vacation and turn your schedule entirely upside down? Sounds a lot more disruptive than just sleeping/waking 15 minutes earlier each day for a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is clever, but the problem that I at least usually deal with is not waking on time, but getting to bed at a reasonable hour, especially if I'm using social media before bed. A Facebook plugin which told the user to go to sleep and maybe told his friends that he/she should be in bed so they should stop talking with him would actually be pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ooh, one of our competitors generalizes the idea of Facebook humiliation as a commitment device: <http://aherk.com>

Other startups offering commitment devices as a service: <http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors>

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks cool!

I'm really curious, though: What is the "Standard Clock" checkbox? (What is a standard clock?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Standard Clock = Using 12 hours with am / pm. You can have it display military time if you like.

<comment><USER19> I see. That will be confusing to non-americans to whom a 12-hour clock is far from standard. It's also seems a bit weird to have two checkboxes (= 4 bits of information) to choose between a 12-hour and 24-hour clock (2 bits). I guess only one can be checked at a time?

That said, however, what you probably _should_ be doing is to respect the setting in iOS: <http://i.imgur.com/kMQgw3m.png>

<comment><USER20> Sorry for the OC. I may have missed something here. I don't see how two checkboxes equal 4 bits of information by default. In this case you can have two checkboxes depending on 1 bit that can represent and/or count 2 values regardless the two checkboxes being complementary or contrary. Four bits can represent up to 16... Are you referencing "bit" for "piece" and also for "binary digit" ? Other ?

<comment><USER19> Err... my brain was just malfunctioning. I meant to say 1 bit and 2 bits, not 2¹ and 2² bits. :-)

<comment><USER20> Thanks for posting back, that was driving me insane. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's an Android equivalent (despite the name, NFC isn't needed): [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wroclawstu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wroclawstudio.puzzlealarmclock&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER22> My problem with this idea is that I don't care if people on facebook know I hit the snooze button and I figure that they would block such notices as spam anyways.

Why not just have a more annoying alarm clock? Or one that is harder to snooze?

</comment><comment><USER23> Do alternative alarm apps still require you to leave the phone on all night?

</comment><comment><USER24> I hate links to pages that cause an application to launch on my computer. I wish apple would not do that. I feel like I'm getting rickrolled every time I click on a link about an app.

</comment><comment><USER25> You need a better icon. Icons are really important on iOS.

</comment><comment><USER26> What does the humiliation on Facebook look like?

<comment><AUTHOR> To be exact:

I am weak willed. I set an Alarm for [ 03:06 PM ] but instead I have decided to snooze ( this is an automated message from BetterMe: www.bettermeapp.co )

<comment><USER27> Sticking an advertisement in there is enough to turn me off the service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't snooze. I set multiple alarms, and turn them off one at a time. Your app can't beat me :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe, yeah tell me about it. I love how we can always find a way around the kinds of traps =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice idea, But definitively nothing for me. That's just not how i use the snooze.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm a long time reader of HN and I would highly appreciate the support.

</comment><comment><USER30> Do your friends really need this kind of spam?

<comment><USER31> How is this spam? 95% of my news feed is worthless, but I still wouldn't classify it as "spam".

Now, if the app sent private messages or wrote to the wall of a friend, that could be classified as "spam".

<comment><USER32> EDIT: I am wrong. See Blowski's message below.

It's unsolicited, bulk, messaging and so it meets definition for spam.

I wonder if it meets Facebook's rules for acceptable wall posts or not. I can see some people hating it.

<comment><USER33> It's writing on the users _own_ wall, which they are asking it to do. Therefore it's not unsolicited. It doesn't write on other users' walls, so it's not bulk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Nice

</comment><comment><USER35> Small gray text on a white background, really, Apple?

<http://contrastrebellion.com/>

<comment><USER36> The kerning on the bold typefaces throughout that site is annoying at best.

<comment><USER37> You mean the star wars type font? It's pretty bad, I assume it's only there as a play on the whole "rebel" spin.</comment></comment></comment>


The MIT License, Line by Line (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-by-Line.html <comment><USER2> This part is hilarious and sad:

> The canonical horrible, no good, very bad example of this is the JSON > license, an MIT-family license plus "The Software shall be used for Good, > not Evil.". This kind of thing might be "very Crockford". It is definitely a > pain in the ass. Maybe the joke was supposed to be on the lawyers. But they > laughed all the way to the bank.

Indeed they did. It's a good reminder to not pull this kind of "very Crockford" stunt and just use a standard, well understood and accepted license.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_not...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_not_Evil%22)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866)

<comment><USER3> I recommend all readers to follow footnote [20] in the Wikipedia article. This is bonus round good.

<comment><USER4> Direct link for the uninitiated: [https://web.archive.org/web/20170722132351/https://dev.hasen...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170722132351/https://dev.hasenj.org/post/3272592502/ibm- and-its-minions)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sometimes I wish that the basics of copyright law, (in the US: softare patent law as well) and open source lienses were a mandatory part of formal education in field related to computing. This has clearly become essential, but knowledge still seems to be here and there and everywhere.

<comment><USER6> [https://fieldguide.kemitchell.com/](https://fieldguide.kemitchell.com/)

[https://oss.kemitchell.com/](https://oss.kemitchell.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559169)

</comment><comment><USER8> I remember reading this article back when it came out, and it made me think a lot about software licenses.

I encourage everyone here to invest some time to read the different libre and open source licenses out there and decide which one would be the best for the software they produce.

The choice of a software license is important and is a political choice.

<comment><USER9> I recommend not spending too much time researching the license. For copyleft there are not that many choices that are standard enough for people to be comfortable using your code (GPL, LGPL, MPLv2 and maybe some ecosystem specific licenses like the EPL).

For BSD-style licenses there is Apache for large projects (which has your back) and a myriad of others that does not.

<comment><USER5> > For BSD-style licenses there is Apache for large projects (which has your > back) and a myriad of others that does not.

I don't know, the BSDs seem to be doing pretty well without Apache licenses.

<comment><USER10> They are, but if you start a new project and you want a permissive license you should probably choose Apache 2.0. It grants the same rights as an MIT or BSD license but also includes an explicit patent grant and a section that deals with the licensing of contributions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a law prof, I have mixed feelings about this.

\- On the one hand, as a piece of legal education, this post is brilliant and lovely.

\- On the other hand, I wonder that it is just part of the regrettable tendency in the legal profession as well as the tech industry to take intellectual property as well as funny contractual-esque terms far too seriously.

The exemplar of point (2) is the Crockford clause (along with the discussion in this comment[1]). Nobody in their right mind would litigate this; there's no universe in which "use for good not evil" is actually a legally enforceable constraint. So what harm does it do?

Like seriously. Look at this[2] complaint:

 _Without a clear definition of "good" and "evil", people need to seriously consider whether they are safe to use the code – because if the developer and users' interpretations of the terms differ, there could be hell to pay. Would you want to ship a hardware device – let's say you're making a smart TV – and have some developer of a library send his lawyers around to tell you "sorry, TV rots kids' brains, it's clearly evil" to get your entire distribution channel shut down by injunction?_

No. Just no, no, no. Find me a judge who is going to issue that injunction. Worrying about that is paranoid in a really unhealthy way. But, alas, we lawyers do that all the time, and that kind of worry is contagious, and we've spread it to everyone else, and it's just silly.

I find it really uncomfortable to think that there are people who are seriously like "THIS DOESN'T COUNT AS AN OPEN SOURCE LICENSE BECAUSE IT FORBIDS US FROM DOING EVIL." Like, really? What litigation are you actually imagining? The only way I can ever imagine someone with a Crockford clause actually convincing any court in any non-dysfunctional jurisdiction to award damages for copyright infringement for unauthorized evil use is if the use is so deeply unambiguously evil that copyright liability is by far the least of the unauthorized user's problem. I mean, we're talking about linting the JSON containing the list of the peoples to be genocided level of evil.

And, you know what? If you use JSLint to do a genocide, I hope Crockford does sue you.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19014052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19014052)

[2] [http://apebox.org/wordpress/rants/456](http://apebox.org/wordpress/rants/456)

<comment><USER2> You are probably right in many respects. But I don't think the objection to the Crockford clause is the worry that he might sue you if you commit genocide.

The objection is that it muddies the waters and costs users money for no good reason.

If a clause like this is so inherently unenforceable, then why put it there in the first place? To make a statement? To annoy people? To make your potential users have to pay their lawyers extra money to find out if they agree that it is something you can safely ignore?

A public company can't just rely on your opinion or mine. They have to do at least some due diligence on an issue like this. And that's money they wouldn't have to spend if the author used a standard license.

<comment><USER11> This is all fair and true. I'm mostly just lamenting that the world is that way. We have structured our collective existence so that it is unsafe for people to draw common sense conclusions like "of course nobody can successfully sue you for copyright infringement for a do no evil clause." It's a horrible side effect of our creating horrible giant forms of human activity that require massively bureaucratized forms of organization in order to function. It's necessary, but still tragic.

<comment><USER2> Very well said, and I share your sorrow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's a wizard which helps to choose a license: [http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/licences/](http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/licences/)

(You'll need to enable JavaScript, though...)

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the author significantly misrepresents the argument against copyright assignment. The issue is not the overhead, the issue is control. If you assign copyright to e.g. FSF then FSF has the exclusive right to relicense to whatever they want. Maybe in the case of FSF I trust them not to abuse this power, but in several recent cases this has been used to relicense projects to be effectively closed source---which is almost certainly not what any independent contributor wanted done with their contribution. The DCO is a compromise that retains protections for the project but also avoids stripping contributors of their rights, which is a safety mechanism of sorts against unilateral relicensing on the part of the original developer.

<comment><USER6> I don't recall covering copyright assignments in this piece. I do recall touching on DCO, but only briefly.

If you'd like my views on contributor license agreements and assignments: [https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/01/06/CLAs-Are-Not-a- Sha...](https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/01/06/CLAs-Are-Not-a-Sham.html)

If you're interested in new ideas on relicensing projects with many contributors: [https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/09/30/Contributor- Counci...](https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/09/30/Contributor- Councils.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. That was 2016?</comment>


Harnessing the Power of the Sun to Turn Apples into Art - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-apple-art <comment><USER2> An article with some pictures:

[https://www.ringodaigaku.com/ringo_blog/english/2018/02/02/1...](https://www.ringodaigaku.com/ringo_blog/english/2018/02/02/105.html)</comment>


Show HN: omgmetoo, our startup project - a free/busy mobile friend tracker - <AUTHOR> http://omgmetoo.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Inspired by the Internet Free/Busy protocol, we created a little tool, which lets you signal your friends if you are free, and what you feel like doing today. You can invite friends to what you are doing, or RSVP really easy. It requires a Facebook account right now, but you'll be able to register without one starting next week.

</comment><comment><USER2> I started giving this a try, but backed out on the third permission page (which was getting boring quickly ;) where it asked to share my email address with you guys.

Why do you need my email address for this? It's instantly stopped me from trying out what looks like a fun app! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> People can invite you to activities and RSVP from the app and we need to notify you about that. We promise to never share it with anyone. But thanks for the advice. We'll think about removing this requirement.

<comment><USER2> Right, but all that functionality could be implemented via Facebook. It supports messaging - between several people at once - and you could have it create events/activites etc automatically and in a really sexy way don't you think? All these will generate notices from Facebook, so you'd just be duplicating the messages ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. We'll do it. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rackspace has increased server costs twofold, and nobody has noticed. - <AUTHOR>

I migrated to the NEXTGEN servers because of the benefits listed everywhere. I built a server and realized that our processes (which were cpu intensive) were taking twice the time they used to on Firstgen.
The response from their side was 'You get "occasional" CPU bursts in Firstgen & that is the reason.
I decided to benchmark the cpu performance & found out that I was right about it.
I contacted the customer care again with this tests:
http://pastebin.com/k0uefXMh
Joe concluded by saying ' The test results were because of occassional cpu bursts'  , even when I mentioned that burst was accounted for.
The test results: http://pastebin.com/aArbwAq2
This time I wanted conclusive results proving the customer care wrong & placed 3 firstgen servers with a cronjob running every minute to benchmark to check for cpu burst. Following were the results :
Server 1 -
Report : http://sebsauvage.net/paste/?d4c24ce3d92b4be6#pDtNzAhU8M3X/J1zLsmuYgIUHxwhYjmNuiic/rxbNng=
Only Total Time  Report : http://sebsauvage.net/paste/?e902ee80be6a2c8d#GvW0Ab52F0iqNZr5dFMi7UzqX4Ux9NA54V1wGvHZnDc=
Server 2 -
Report: http://sebsauvage.net/paste/?c33c9030eb01e2af#Iid3w7rWgJ+ysDJZx2ULCzyItXBv04Q83tmGp066nTE=
Time Report : http://sebsauvage.net/paste/?a27a204039529abd#yTKoy3qZQUxbIsAOIyYWwlIgIHWnYnfbpkfDuiS/8YA=
Server 3 -
Report : http://sebsauvage.net/paste/?a32c096ad8f1968b#psOme81n2DPgYp8aK7i75v/WsETs6bmVLKaoHS0CVqY=
Only Time Report : http://sebsauvage.net/paste/?31a9d12316d9cbd2#LblvVwH+sGzQytOwU8DM9wtH5eN+87jAbUL7UnpNOH4=
All the results were consistent, proving me right. I went back to the customer care with this just to be terribly disappointed with their response. Here is the conversation : http://pastebin.com/cedtk1zL
Here is the benchmark script that ran every minute : http://pastebin.com/UeskWw5M
Increasing the price two folds is one thing & not informing customers about it is another. The latter is the one I am more disappointed in. <comment><USER2> Below is the Official Rackspace Response to this thread:

vCPU allocations for next generation cloud servers were adjusted to provide more consistent performance, not to extract more profit. Rackspace is not making any more money per server than before. In fact, we recently reduced the price for 512Mb and 30Gb servers by an average of 30%. We take transparency seriously, so we published an article detailing the changes and explaining the logic behind it which you can read here: [http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/whitepaper/cpu- in-...](http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/whitepaper/cpu-in-next- generation-cloud-servers).

Erik Carlin, director of product management put it this way ""Our goal is to find the sweet spot that maximizes price performance while still providing a consistent experience." Customers with larger flavors are experiencing higher and more consistent performance with next generation cloud servers. Depending on the load running at a given time in neighbor instances, performance can be higher for small instances too. We are working with a third party on benchmarks which we expect to publish in the next few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, I'm sure this will be more rampant with cloud services and their black- box billing. Unless good people like you compare what they're getting to what they're paying for companies like Rackspace will just keep gobbling up smaller firms and jacking up their prices to boot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I wont go so far calling Rackspace a 'bad' company as such, afterall they have an excellent customer support - but there are somethings which should never be overlooked or , for that matter, never be done when you have such a huge customer base. Rackspace is just taking a wrong turn here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hopefully this will get enough attention that we can get a response from Rackspace.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is what I was expecting from HN community. It would be really sad to see this go unnoticed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rackspace ripped me off.

<comment><USER6> We'd be happy to look into what happened. If you'd like us to, please email email@example.com with your account info and details about the experience that you're referencing. Thanks.

<comment><USER5> Oh hell no. I'll never deal with you guys again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> RS is only used by those that haven't found the beauty that is EC2.

<comment><AUTHOR> sure, github, thenextweb & countless others ovelooked the beauty that EC2 was.Right?

There are countless differences between EC2 & Rackspace for example CPU - rackspace's performance is way better than EC2. You should benchmark your scripts on both & then compare.

<comment><USER7> They're both using the same virtualization. What's your use case that requires that much CPU? I'd bet spot instances would be a better fit in most cases.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, spot instances would surely fit. And yes EC2 is awesome too. No point in changing the thread to a different discussion altogether. Even if Rackspace is #2, this is not what was expected of it, right? Changing the provider to EC2 is an option that everyone has but that has enormous overhead too!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Facebook uses your data - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/How-Facebook-uses-your-data/articleshow/11775188.cms

<comment><USER2> You can summarize the whole article without loosing much information as following "Facebook uses what you post on your or others wall to deliver targeted adverts", there are no details and like.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's funny that they want you to log in via Facebook.</comment>


Ask HN: Which DSLR Lens? - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN,
I am hunting for my second (the first being a stock kit 18-55mm) DSLR lens. I know I want a telephoto zoom, but am unsure what I can get around the $300-400 range for a Canon DSLR? So far, I've found this somewhat useful article:http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/dslrlens.html
While you're at it, I am still a semi-noob dSLR enthusiast and wouldn't mind a few pointers at taking better shots :-) <comment><USER2> $300-400 is going to buy you plastic crumby lenses. I do a lot of various photography... weddings, family, portraits, kids, landscapes, etc. If you bought your DSLR to take more photos than quick shots at family gatherings, invest in prime lenses.

That being said, the best (cheap) lens I have ever used/bought was 50mm 1.8/f lens. It was for the Nikon, but Cannon has one similar. The price is about $100 depending where you go.

I don't know the cannon world very well, but those guys talking about Nikons 18-200 is truly one of the best lenses there is. In terms of what it can do and cost. I bring it when I travel alot because it's small, great zoom, great wide angle (all considering), great in low light, great for outdoors and decent indoors.

Another thought is to visit your local camera shop and rent some lenses. Try them out for a weekend. Borrow from fellow Cannon owners. Go out on Flickr meetups and see what they are using.

Quite honestly hackernews crowd is the not the best place to find other photographers for advice :)

<comment><USER3> _I don't know the cannon world very well, but those guys talking about Nikons 18-200 is truly one of the best lenses there is_

What's the best camera? The one you have on you when you need to get a picture. There's a lot of sneering about "vacation lenses" like the 18-200, but the tiny drop in image quality is well worth just having the right lens on the body when you see something neat.

Sometimes the best hack is the simplest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 50 mm f/1.8 should be your first lens. _Learn_ how to take great pictures with that, after that I'd suggest:

28 mm f/2.0 (anything below 35 mm would do)

Once you've got the basics down with prime lenses, I'd suggest a good walk around lense with image stabilization (I am a Nikon guy and I like my 18-200 VRII). 85 mm f/1.8 is another good lens for portraiture (VR isn't great for everything).

<comment><USER5> agreed, even if you aren't really serious about ever being a 'great photographer' - the prime lenses are just dramatically superior to anything else in the 'within reason' price range. though if you are on one of the SLRs that makes everything a telephoto, you might want to start with a 35mm or a 28mm rather than the 50mm, even though the 50 is a better lens for the money. If you take indoor photos with the 50 on my D30, you end up trying to get as far away as possible from the subject, which can be hard in small apartment rooms.

Even from another rank amateur, the quality difference between the primes and the affordable zoom lenses is dramatic. Honestly, most of my photography consists of taking pictures of equipment for ebay or blogging, but slap a 50mm canon prime on a ancient 3 megapixel D30 and your photos are sharp enough to read the serial numbers, even when your photographer is a shaky handed amateur, something that is decidedly not the case for the zoom lenses I've seen in that price range.

Sure, once you get up into the multi-thousand dollar zooms, I'm sure the difference fades, but really, I'm just not that into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree with dimarco. Start with the 50mm f/1.8 fixed lens. It's good quality for the price. The real professional lenses cost between 900 and 1600 dollars. Fixed ones are cheaper. Zoom are more expensive.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens $99.95 -- if you buy this, you MUST buy the UV filter [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00007E7JU?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00007E7JU?ie=UTF8&tag=billpaetzke-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00007E7JU)

UV filter (protects lens' glass): Tiffen 52mm UV filter $9.95 -- goes with the Canon EF 50mm lens (trust me; this is the correct size filter) [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004ZCJG?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004ZCJG?ie=UTF8&tag=billpaetzke-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00004ZCJG)

Tutorial Book: Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera $17.13 -- Bryan Peterson, the author, is a god of photography teaching [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0817463003?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0817463003?ie=UTF8&tag=billpaetzke-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0817463003)

Tutorial Book: Beyond Portraiture: Creative People Photography -- $17.13 -- Bryan Peterson, the author, is a god of photography teaching [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0817453911?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0817453911?ie=UTF8&tag=billpaetzke-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0817453911)

My credibility is that I have been a digital photography hobbyist for three years. Here are some of my photos: <http://billpaetzke.smugmug.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> Check out [http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/reviews/best_canon_eos_...](http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/reviews/best_canon_eos_lenses.html)

I have the tokina 12-24 which is a wonderful lens. Any others with similar ratings would be a joy to own. For cheap next step lenses, perhaps a 28-105 for it's size or the 28-135 is for it's sharpness. I think they are f3.5 or so.

I like my f1.8 50 but it's cheap plastic. I would probably look at the older f1.8 or a used f1.4 50 from KEH.com.

Shoot a wide variety of photo experiments. Publish them somewhere to give structure. Ignore the rules and test the edge conditions. Overexpose. Underexpose. Use a flash in daylight. Handhold in darkness. Set timers. Shoot star trails. Shoot from the hip. Find a few favorite photographers and try to duplicate what they have done.

</comment><comment><USER8> off topic for HN, but:

Why do you want a telephoto lens? Do you shoot mostly wildlife?

If you don't shoot wildlife or have a specific use in mind - skip the telephoto and go for a prime lens.

A prime lens doesn't zoom, but they usually better quality as you'll get a much bigger aperture.

Definitely own the 50mm 1.8 lens, and be comfortable shooting it. That is where I'm at in photography. The 50mm 1.8 is cheap, < $200, so you have no reason not to own that.

Good luck.

<comment><USER9> I love the Canon 50mm 1.4. It's at the high end of the range, but (~ $400 I think) but still reasonable.

<comment><USER10> If you can, get the new sigma 50mm 1.4 instead of the Canon. The sigma has USM, better bokeh, is faster, has better build quality and seems a bit sharper. Both go for around the same price (~300 euros).

<comment><USER9> Amazon owes you a referral fee ;-). My Canon 50mm is actually broken (and out of warranty), so I just ordered one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a Canon user from the days of film. Recently bought a digital back so that I could use all my old lenses. Most cameras have a 1.6 multiplier that is the 50mm is as if it were a 80mm - nice prime for portraiture, a 75mm (film) prime would be even better.

Cheap plastic lenses are just that, cheap. You might as well just buy a $100 point and shoot. Zoom lenses are great if you have to be prepared for anything and don't have time to change prime lenses (don't forget dust, etc problems) and of course all those lenses are a bother to carry. Trouble is that quality zoom lenses cost heaps. Of course, you could try buying second-hand, but sometimes they have been knocked around and are worse than useless.

Unless you are on the move a lot, a tripod is a better option than expensive image stabilization lenses. For absolutely shake free shots learn to use the self-timer to let the camera settle down after pressing the shutter release button.

Learn to focus manually, the auto-focus doesn't work best in some light conditions. Same about the settings, learn to use manual settings. Unlike film, you are not wasting money by experimenting.

atrain34 is right, get your tips from a photography forum.

</comment><comment><USER12> You probably already know the site: www.dpreview.com

Also, when you get a Canon telephoto lens, make sure to get one with Image Stabilization.

Check out the guardian iPad app - each day they post a photo and discuss the shooting choices made by the photographer - [http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/insideguardian/2010/apr/06/th...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/insideguardian/2010/apr/06/theguardian- eyewitness-app-ipad)

</comment><comment><USER13> I've had a good experience with the Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM. It's right in the middle of your price range and has image stabilization and a good zoom range. It's my go-to lens if I'm traveling light.

If you can possibly save up for the 24-105 f/4L, do it.

Everyone else suggests that you get a prime lens - they're fantastic for portraits but so so very annoying in any other situation. On the plus side, the 50mm 1.8 Canon lens is amazingly cheap and light. On the downside, it's noisy, takes forever to focus, and it's just not very versatile. I'd get it after a good zoom lens; it's worth having but not right off the bat.

The right lens for you really depends on your photographic style - if you shoot wildlife, scenery, street photography, or people, your lens choice will be wildly different.

Cheers!

P.S. my go-to site for lens information is <http://www.canonlensreview.com> \- it's quite good and simple.

</comment><comment><USER14> A great, great site to go for advice is the www.fredmiranda.com forums. They have tons of info already available that you can search through and on top of that, their buy/sell forum for used gear is highly reputable and you can save 20% off new prices for great, clean and high quality lenses.

Hope this helps! Good luck and good shooting!

</comment><comment><USER15> Abundance of professional performed lens tests created as side project <http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/overview></comment>


Why I Stopped Pirating Music - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/188297/why-i-stopped-pirating-music/

<comment><USER2> I have almost had exactly the same experience as you (the writer). I currently have an MOG and Spotify subscription, but when a song hit's a sweet spot and I get emotionally attached, I end up buying it in the iTunes store. I most likely will start buying CD's again as soon as I get a new AV system, but if it wasn't for piracy I have no idea how I would of ever been so attached to music. All genres. Now with me going legal, MOG/Spotify act's as my piracy used to in letting me explore, and if the music touches me, I buy it. Only time I "pirate" is I want it in FLAC. There still isn't an option for lossless music online that satisfy my range of genres. <i>I still don't have the guts to delete my music collection though. </i>

TLDR;

Used to pirate a lot, helped me be more open to listen to different types of music. Now use MOG/Spotify to explore, and buy what I want to KEEP FOREVER.</comment>


Show HN: Is Yield Curve Inverted? - <AUTHOR> http://isyieldcurveinverted.com/ <comment><USER2> While it's true the 10 year - 1 year spread is negative, usually when you're talking about yield curve inversions, the duration people focus on is the 10 year - 2 year. That's not currently inverted, but very shortly it was, which kind of triggered all the news stories.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y)

The 10 year - 3 month spread has been negative since May when the last big stock market selloff was.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y3M](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y3M)

</comment><comment><USER3> Iamwil: can you run this backwards for as far back as data exists?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I just didn't display all the data. I think it goes back to the 90's or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What does it mean if yield curve is inverted?

<comment><AUTHOR> Typically, people that lend out their money for longer periods of time want a higher interest rate for lending out that money, than if they lend out at a shorter time frame.

The yield curve inverts when the interest rate you get for lending long term bonds (~10 years) is less than the interest rate you get for short term bonds (~1 year). Every recession in the last 8 or so recessions had been predated by a yield curve inversion, so people take it to be a predictor of a slowing economy now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> usually after how long into a recession will the yield curve reverse back? And how will that predict an economic recovery?

</comment><comment><USER6> Site is down

<comment><AUTHOR> Just takes a little bit to load if someone hadn't hit it in a while.</comment></comment>


Peer Street - <AUTHOR> http://www.peerstreet.com <comment><USER2> I have invested in 4 Peer Street loans. The appeal to me is the transparency. All of their previous loans have been paid off. Compare to realtyshares.com where it is impossible to judge the past performance of old loans.

I'm drawn to these kinds of investments because they (hopefully) aren't tightly correlated to the stock market. And, unlike Lending Club, they are secured loans that are tied to property that can be liquidated if the borrower defaults.

Mr. Money Mustache had a writeup on Peer Street this week: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/02/peerstreet/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/02/peerstreet/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's the thing about this kind of loan. Its like the junk bond market for corporate debt.

When things are good, as they have been from 2009 until today, then you can roll debt over and these high risk, high return loans look like a goo investment.

When things go bad, people stop having access to capital to roll their loans and it isn't one loan that goes bad, its the entire sector that goes bad.

The problem with this lender is that they can't show data for a period like 2008, when there were defaults all over the place. That's not their fault as they weren't around then but its something to keep in mind.

if you are getting above average return for loaning money then you are by definition taking above average risk.

Ask banks in 2008 how having their loans secured by the property worked. When someone defaults on their loan it isn't always because they can't pay, its often because the property is worth less than the loan value on it.

<comment><USER4> Great points, that's why conservative underwriting and low LTV (loan to value) ratios matter so much. Look at PeerStreet deals, they are 75% LTV and under with a site wide average of 63% LTV. Every deal that goes up is stress tested against the last 20yrs of data in the sub market, then projected against the term of the loan and that's posted with each deal that goes up. But you are absolutely right that these things matter. In 2008, the banks were loaning at 100% LTV, that means the borrower has no skin in the game. And then lenders had guaranteed take outs of their loans. Those are some of the of the big reasons so much went wrong.PeerStreet is trying to take as many learnings from the securitization market as possible, both positive and negative and factor them in.

</comment></comment><comment> d--b How can they advertise "High quality loans" that pay 6%-12%? That sounds super shady. Plus they take a 0.25%-1% spread on top of it!

This should be marketed as high yield, super risky investments, but they try and make it sound that it is great and safe. It's one thing to have good originators, and another to have bad credit loans that actually get repaid.

<comment><USER5> My guess is that they are bridge loans (A "bridge loan" is basically a short term loan taken out by a borrower against their current property to finance the purchase of a new property) which are often much higher rate. That or there is a leverage where there is some structure to the cashflow. So for instance, a loan can pay 4% and can be separated into two pieces, one pays 2% and the other pays 6%. When there is a loss, the 6% would take a bigger loss that the 2% piece.

It's probably the former though since it appears to be very short.

Edit: It's neither:

> As an investor, you're usually funding loans, which are then used to buy and > improve real properties, and you get paid for doing so. But because you're > not competing in the well-developed 30-year residential mortgage market, you > can expect to collect annual interest in the 7-10% range, rather than the > 3-4% that mortgage securities pay their owners.

So essentially its more like a REIT.

[0] [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/02/peerstreet/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/02/peerstreet/)

<comment><USER6> I don't get it, why not a HELOC at those LTVs? Any HELOC can beat 10%...

<comment><USER4> These are first position liens on business purpose, non-owner occupied properties. Often these are fix and flip or buy to rent properties.

<comment><USER6> Ah, I see. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not quite like Lending Club:

>The SEC requires all PeerStreet investors to be accredited investors

<comment><USER8> I know that "accredited investors" is a pretty common thing and not something the SEC cooked up but its really disheartening that you'd need 200-300k in income to somehow verify that you know what you're doing with your money.

Funny they don't seem to have the same requirements for lotto tickets...

<comment><USER9> Things that are perfectly fine when only a few people are doing them often become a real problem when hundreds or thousands or millions of people are doing them. That's why investors need to be accredited. Otherwise legions of hopefuls will throw their nest eggs into overly-leveraged positions sold by the unscrupulous. That's what happened in the early days of stock markets.

But take a step back and think about it for a second. You can put 'ways to make money' on the axis of 'conscious involvement'. On the left you'd have 'keeping a job', then on the right you'd have 'hiring a professional money manager'.

As you traverse the scale, returns on investment vs. conscious attention devoted tends to decrease. You need no money to get started on a job, but investing in the stock market requires large amounts of cash to generate significant returns.

Until you have a quarter of a million dollars net worth, it just doesn't make sense to do more than slow-growth passive investment over time to fund a very specific event, retirement. Even there it's a hard sell for many people. You need to make a lot more than the average for retirement investment to really work for you.

In the middle of the scale, between having a job and investing, is running a business. If you want to move up the economic ladder, the move isn't from salaried professional worker straight to investor, it's to hanging out your shingle and carving out an economic niche. In business, it's much easier to earn the kind of money you need to make investing work.

Over time, you can learn your niche to the point to where you can direct others to exploit it rather than do it yourself. This is where the line blurs between business and investment, where you have a working system turning inputs to revenue, and all you have to do is watch the numbers to make sure they keep going up. And you don't need to be accredited to do it.

You might think, "oh, but I could day trade and earn a ton of money if the SEC would just let me!" If you don't know the principles, the market is going to burn you badly. If you know the principles, then you'll know it's not a fast road to riches. Business will get you there much quicker.

The SEC is aware that the accreditation limitations are somewhat onerous, so what they're doing is opening up some Series A rounds to unlimited numbers of unaccredited investors. If you want to bet on an emerging market, this would be the best way to do it:

[https://www.seedinvest.com/](https://www.seedinvest.com/)

I considered investing in Virtuix, but decided I needed the money accessible right now more than I needed a lottery ticket, no matter how much I believe in the potential of VR. What did I need the money for? Tiding me over while I get my startup off the ground.

Don't shy away from learning or starting a business. It'll make you a better investor when the time comes.

<comment><USER8> I admittedly (probably obviously) don't know much about investing. I have some of my savings in Betterment but kind of want to get into something more active. But you make a lot of sense here, thank you.

<comment><USER9> Before you start looking for investment positions to take, you need to get your personal finances straight. This means, in order:

No credit card debt. You can have credit cards, just don't run up the balance. This should be the first place your disposable income goes to. You can let the balances run up if you're saving for a down payment for your house, that might be the only real way to save it up on a salary. Pay it back down immediately after the close.

A paid-off vehicle. Paying off your car loan frees up that money for the rest of the list. You can buy a home while you're making car payments, but you need to be making enough to pay down your credit card debt incurred from saving the down payment, your mortgage, and your car loan all at the same time. A car loan doesn't look expensive until you stack it up with everything else, just drive a used car unless you really need a new car for some reason and are willing to pay the significant premium.

A house. You should be making double your monthly payment on your mortgage. The equity you're building up will be an asset worth more than most financial instruments you have access to. Buy a house before you start investing, it gets you situated in your community and helps to provide a safety net in case of a sudden loss of income.

An emergency fund of perhaps $20K. Pick a comfortable number, this is an essential part of your safety net, not so much because you'll actually need it, but because it will give you a nice inner psychological cushion that will let you really relax. It's the next best thing to actually being rich, don't neglect it.

Finally, you need a side project, something that will eventually turn into your business. Start doing this while you're holding down a job, rather than quitting and living on credit cards / savings unless you are a masochist or are in your early twenties. (pardon me for repeating myself) You need your mistakes to be cheap and not lifestyle-threatening.

A fully-funded retirement account. I think this is the least important part of your safety net if you're planning on going into business. Very important though if you're not. Best play it safe and put the maximum amount the government will let you. The tax-deferral makes these accounts far more lucrative than day-trading.

If you have all of these things fully funded with your current income, then you can start playing around with trading. Take a percentage of _excess_ emergency funds, (do not jeopardize your safety net, it's way more important than gambling) and start making expensive mistakes, oh I mean day trading. Trade only after you've done all you can for your side project that day.

Does this look impossible to achieve? It is. You need a yearly income of perhaps $150K to do all this, and still retain a healthy lifestyle. This assumes you're not in a ridiculous real estate market like New York or San Francisco. It assumes you're living a "Millionaire Next Door" lifestyle and not trading financial security for expensive psychological self-medication like a coke habit or worse, retail therapy. Get a real therapist instead, it's way cheaper and far more effective.

This doesn't mean "ignore me and do whatever you want." This means "don't day trade." Any gains you'd make from day trading don't outweigh the risks, they can't even cover the opportunity cost of not doing everything else on the list. If you day trade without a safety net, then you are mortgaging your future on bad bets. If you think your bets aren't bad, then you don't understand how betting or investing works and you will lose a lot of money.

If financial security is one of your goals, the above list is how to get it. It's the shortest path that is still reliable. If getting rich is your goal, then you can move your side project up the list to between house and vehicle. But the list is still valid because the things on it are going to be the first things you're going to want to buy once you actually get rich, and besides, very few people get rich overnight, so you're still dealing with climbing each rung individually over time. Even if you won the freaking lottery then the list, minus the side project is the first thing you need after the immediate short-term necessity of a good lawyer. You're just buying them all at once rather than working up to each step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is reminding me of the Big Short. Hopefully it's a false alarm.

Anecdotal hypothesis: I found it very easy to be approved for a house I could hardly afford, so if there is another recession on the job market, I could see a lot of mortgages defaulting again. On the flip side, that's why Mortgage insurance is there. However, will we bail out the insurers next time, instead of the banks?

<comment><USER11> They've got Dr. Michael Burry as one of their advisors so hopefully they won't go the way of the Big Short - [https://www.peerstreet.com/about](https://www.peerstreet.com/about). There's a pretty good post from MMM about how it works - [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/02/peerstreet/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/02/peerstreet/).

<comment><USER12> "The short story is that I'll be collecting interest on this loan at a rate of 10%, until 11 months from now when the loan is suddenly repaid in a balloon payment."

Sounds a whole lot like subprime. In a rising market, it's not a bad deal. In a flat/down market, expect a lot of these to crater.

<comment><USER13> The difference (I believe) is the people taking out these loans are professional real estate investors with good credit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How can they advertise 6 to 12% annual returns (12%!!!) for lenders when 1) PeerStreet have to take out their 0.25-1% fee && 2) All of the Big Banks are offering home mortgage rates of <4%?

When the numbers are this far apart, I can't help but be suspicious.

<comment><USER15> Isn't the idea that each loan is high risk (hence high interest) but you can still expect a good return if you issue hundreds of such loans and each loan is tiny?

<comment><USER12> Such was the logic behind subprime CDOs. We all know how that one turned out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> i know the CTO. Great guy. Super happy to see this on front page of HN.

<comment><USER16> this comment keeps getting down voted. Let me explain. The year was 1999. I was working at bizrate.com in Marina del Rey California. A young 17 year old kid accepts a job as a programmer intern and I teach him java. He teaches me about napster. We stay friends over the years. Now he's a big time CTO. And I see this on the front page of hacker news. I wrote the comment and it was authentic and real. Why the downvotes?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Good explanation but without it we don't know the difference between vouching and shilling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A UK company with a slightlly different but related business model [https://propertymoose.co.uk](https://propertymoose.co.uk)

</comment><comment><USER18> how did this scam + spam make it here?</comment>


Treasury to TARP Inspector General: Drop Dead - <AUTHOR> http://beyondbailouts.org/?p=1492&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BeyondBailouts+%28BeyondBailouts.org%29

<comment><USER2> Come on, for this audience the title should be amended to: "Treasury to SIGTARP: Drop Dead"

Or maybe "Treasury to SIGTARP: kill -9"</comment>