P&G and WPP: How shit hit the fan in digital marketing - <AUTHOR> https://mumbrella.com.au/pg-wpp-shit-hit-fan-digital-marketing-502769 <comment><USER2> As someone who has been responsible for a bit north of $1B in profitable, attributable digital ad spend in my career, I can say with conviction that the problem comes down to analytics and misalignment of incentives, NOT the performance of digital media channels.

1)Agencies charge on a % of total media spend, and are thus incentivized to spend more.

2)Advertisers net benefit from expected lifetime value and revenue generation, but are often reticent to share this type of information to an agency.

Agencies are commonly unable to get access to business-level health metrics such as churn, RPU, LTV, and thus optimize to top of the funnel metrics that often do not correlate with attributable lift but do correlate with showing the value of increased levels of spend. Such metrics include click-through rate, viewability, brand awareness and safety, fraud mitigation, etc.

This, combined with the improved ease of use for major digital platforms (I know quite a few startup CEOs who manage all of their PPC/Facebook ad spend), is why the agency model has started to fail. And that is a good thing.

The less intermediaries that touch an advertising campaign, the less likely it is that we as consumers will see an irrelevant ad.

<comment><USER3> It is, better to say, a sunset for the industry as such.

Digital ads had the most wow effect at the time of google's text ads and Internet yet not being a general demographics' thing.

Back then, they were able to show numbers, but not now.

First generation internet users were mostly highly technically literate, high income professionals. Now, the user ratio has reversed.

You can argue that putting efforts to find a needle in a haystack was still paying off when the majority of needles were of incomparably higher marginal value than they are now: consumer goods clicks, say, are lower value than commercial equipment sales clicks, yet you still have to put an equivalent or greater effort to datamine somebody to make them buy an accursed face lotion even if the number of face lotion buyers is 1000 times bigger.

This is a tragedy of the Internet ad industry. There is a finite amount of eyeballs, and the amount of companies with a substantial money wanting to sell you a face lotion will always eclipse the amount of companies who market unique, relevant, specialty products one may actually be actively looking to buy.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand your critique:

>unique, relevant, specialty products one may actually be actively looking to buy

This is because the number of people who buy normal lotion is 1000x the number of people who buy unique specialty lotion. Why would the advertising be different than the market?

>First generation internet users were mostly highly technically literate, high income professionals. Now, the user ratio has reversed.

The internet reached the masses - how is that a negative for advertisers? They have more people to advertise to.

>yet you still have to put an equivalent or greater effort to datamine

This isn't true. For lotion you buy lotion related keywords, for commercial equipment you need in-depth research about those products, use cases, industry terms, and the queries people use.

<comment><USER3> >This is because the number of people who buy normal lotion is 1000x the number of people who buy unique specialty lotion. Why would the advertising be different than the market?

No, I can't imagine anybody randomly buying a random face lotion online, and I say that as somebody who did a stint in adtech for a few years with access to "crown jewels" of a major advertising brokerage conglomerate. People barely click on FMGC ads even if being force fed, I would've shown you the digits if not for NDA. Their purpose is impressions, even if they are not explicitly billed on PPM basis.

The lion share of ad inventory of any tier 1 ad vendor are for "stuff people buy in Walmarts," and yes the total revenue from FMCG ads is mind boggling and defies any attempt at rational understanding.

Even if the sole point of an ad is to keep the product on top of somebody's mind, it will be of very very little payoff to an advertiser. Though, one can reason that a gigantic big fat FMCG co. bathing in cash can still easily afford doing so even if is patently stupid. This is because even if their bang for buck is approaching zero, it is still better than none for them.

>This isn't true. For lotion you buy lotion related keywords, for commercial equipment you need in-depth research about those products, use cases, industry terms, and the queries people use.

I counter your argument. In both cases, the adtech efforts needed to sustain a barely functioning campaign eclipse all other hurdles. Extreme targeting is the key - even if it sucks, it sucks less than investment in almost anything else including £1k per hour big name marketing consultants.

How it looks on technical side: huge effort at industrial scale purchasing of "cubes" \- huge databases of cookies with their statistical and fuzzy logic data from _thousands_ of companies, including the black hat scene. Other than cookies, analogous data come from email list vendors, IMEI/phone number db vendors, vendors of stolen contact lists, search histories, GPS data and etc. All of this is barely enough to for a sustained campaign for F500 FMCG.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is true for startups, too. If your marketing team (or agency) is running ad campaigns, _demand evidence of its contribution to the bottom line_.

Also, ensure your marketers' self-worth is not tied to the outcome of the campaigns they're running; or else they will hide bad outcomes.

I regularly shut off campaigns if there's no evident benefit of keeping them on, regardless of what the industry says. For instance, a lot of people talk about retargeting, but _I have not seen any success with retargeting_ after trying with 5-10 clients.

I also discovered that Twitter charges you for accidental clicks on your ads even if they _know_ they're accidental. Also, these accidental clicks made up >90% of clicks on one campaign I ran.

It's reassuring to see the big players come to the same realization.

<comment><USER6> > demand evidence of its contribution to the bottom line

If agencies have no access to business metrics, isn't this burden upon the advertiser to evaluate the campaigns in terms of business metrics?

Media agencies have their own kpis of success - a campaign can have a good performance media wise, but have little to no impact on the business.

You can say: "well... blame the creative agency for their poor campaign concept!" ... you can say that... except they work with what they have: a specific brand and a product/service.

No agency controls distribution, pricing, placement, quality, customer service, and many other variables that dictate the success of a campaign.

It's easy to blame agencies because they are outside organizations. You are a pitch of way of cleaning your bad decisions as a brand or marketing manager.

The client is always right, even when the client is wrong.

<comment><USER5> You're right, my comment applies more to in-house marketing teams or whoever is managing the agency, and not the agencies themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So far as I can tell a large fraction of adverts "targeting" me don't understand time's arrow.

I bought some very expensive high heels as a treat for myself. They don't make them in my size, I bought them because they're beautiful and put them on display.

In the following weeks I received lots of advertising for those exact shoes. Not for high heels generally, not for nice frocks, and certainly not for glass display shelves, just endless adverts for the same exact pair of shoes.

Somewhere a "digital advertising executive" is telling their client that these adverts were very highly correlated with sales of the shoes. Of course, they'll disclaim, correlation isn't causation. But it is - that's their dirty secret, just the reverse of the causation pretended to. Advertise to people who are already buying the product, then say "See advertising works".

The shoes are the most blatant example because they're so noticeable (I did not spend that much on shoes which are merely a pretty red colour or covered in sparkles) but I even saw this for mundane things like a Seagate hard disk. I purchased the disk a week ago, immediately I began to receive adverts for it, and they tailed off after a few days. Every single penny spent on that advertising was wasted, I already _bought_ the hard disk. The online grocery store I sometimes use actually builds custom adverts with my exact list of groceries in it, then advertises them to me the day after I order them for delivery, again a human looking at this can see instantly that it's insane, but so long as you don't understand time's arrow (and an advertising algorithm has no a priori reason to do that) then the correlation looks really good...

<comment><USER8> You make an interesting point about something I _thought_ I understood, but actually didn't.

I always assumed the point of this advertising approach was that it's messy, but it works. Someone who just bought shoes probably won't be buying a new pair ASAP, but there might be better odds than for any random person. Maybe they like shoes, maybe they'll return them, maybe that's their go-to gift for friends.

I genuinely hadn't thought it might just be an exercise in fudging correlation numbers to make ads look more successful than they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a pity there is _so_ much misunderstanding about what this spend is.

Most people seem to have a reasonable understanding of the "sales" side of the advertising business, where you are trying to get someone to buy your products. That's _not what this is_. This is the _marketing_ spend, where you are trying to get people to know about your product.

This _isn 't_ your typical search engine, facebook or retargetting spend. A very large amount of this is video and/or display advertising, and the intention isn't to drive click-though. Instead it is to drive "brand awareness".

The theory here in the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods - think toothpaste or shampoo) segment where P&G plays is that a consumer needs to be familiar with a brand before they make a choice to buy it - especially if it is more expensive.

So the sequence goes:

Make people aware of brand (brand advertising: TV ads, Video ads, Stunts etc)

Get people to try brand (special offers, discounts, co-selling)

Let retailers fight for the sales between themselves (display setups in shops, retailer discounts, recommendation engines in online shopping, maybe click- through advertising)

This "brand awareness" is something which is much harder to measure (I think survey panels is the state-of-the-art still). The digital advertising industry still hasn't solved multi-touch attribution in the _sales_ side of the business, and this is way earlier in the buying cycle.

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks like the perfect storm for online advertising. For one, ad blocking is on a steady rise and it seems that it got the networks worried to the point that Google tries to circumvent the whole trend by supporting better practices. Then we have the upcoming GDPR ruling in EU which could wreck havoc to advertising networks. On top of that we have ad fraud which has gone to new levels especially after the story about Methbot broke out last year. And now we see major consumer brands pulling out of online advertising.

I have to admit, I love this whole situation. Online advertising has long stopped being useful and it's becoming malignant hurting the medium in so many ways. It seems that ad networks don't bother at all to fix any of the problems from privacy to malware and whatnot. So fuck them. Let them wither and die for all I care.

<comment><USER11> And let the micropayment dream rise in it's wake!

With classical stuff like Liberapay, patreon and buy me a coffee and more fancy stuff like Cryptocurrencies, we should finally be able to fund our stuff differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Also, I am told by industry insiders, a "blockbuster" study on media > performance in the UK is coming in the next few days. It will make the > digital ad industry apoplectic and have them screaming.

Can't wait to see this one on hackernews in a few days. Is 2018 going to be the worst year yet for digital ads?

<comment><USER13> > Also, I am told by industry insiders, a "blockbuster" study on media > performance in the UK is coming in the next few days. It will make the > digital ad industry apoplectic and have them screaming.

Hard to take someone seriously when they talk like that. Also it's hard to take the publication seriously when they write nonsense like that. It sounds like local car company or mattress company advertising. "These prices are so low that it will have you screaming!".

> Is 2018 going to be the worst year yet for digital ads?

Worst year yet? Digital advertising has been growing by at least double digits for the last 10 years.

It surpassed TV ad spending last year.

[https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad- sp...](https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-spend- advertising-beat-tv)

Digital ad spending is going to increase. It's where the young people are.

It might dip as the corporate elite try to control social media, but for it to have the "worst year yet", digital ad spending would have to drop by 99.99% of last year's spending to get to 2000s level spending. We already surpassed that the first week of january.

<comment><USER14> I don't think that's a fair way to measure "worst year yet". If your agency's sales drop by 20%, it doesn't console you to know that the industry overall is much bigger than it was in 2000.

<comment><USER13> > I don't think that's a fair way to measure "worst year yet".

Then what is? What were you referring to when you wrote "worst year yet"?

> If your agency's sales drop by 20%, it doesn't console you to know that the > industry overall is much bigger than it was in 2000.

You didn't mention a particular agency. You mentioned digital ads in 2018. So that's what I responded to. Of course there are going to be winners and losers within any industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What I find odd is that digital ads gives you much more clarity of impact than tv/radio/print ads. It also gives you more detailed cohort data so that you can learn from experiments and adjust your buys based on where the impact is. It's as if the P&Gs of the world woke up recently and realized they need to understand impact of their media buys in general.

<comment><USER16> Ads offend me. They're an imposition, distracting, mind pollution. So I block them. And even when I see them, using a browser in a LiveCD etc, I pointedly ignore them.

Now maybe I'm unusual. Long ago, I did get used to an Internet without ads. And was sad when malware and ads started showing up. But given the increasing prevalence of ad blockers, I'm not _that_ unusual.

So anyway, average view time of 1.5 sec for ads seems about right. Especially if that average includes lots of zeros.

<comment><USER17> Do you subscribe to any digital media as an alternative (or I suppose, as an alternative to the ad blocking alternative)?

<comment><USER16> I subscribe to some sites as my meatspace persona. But nothing so far as Mirimir, because there are no ways to pay anonymously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It amazes me that P and G pays outside agencies huge heaps of money to agencies that sit between them and the advertisers. Seems like a slam dunk to move in House given the incentive issues.

<comment><USER19> in some cases agencies really add value and have competencies which are not that easy to insource back.

some examples:

for smallish advertisers (this is not P&G, I understand) agencies can negotiate much better terms, because agencies are buying in bulk.

and if you are interested in performance marketing with clearly measurable results, building a good internal team could be a challenge as well.

so, it's not a slam dunk.

<comment><USER20> Except that agencies do not pass those "much better terms" to the clients.

<comment><USER21> WPP != agencies

plenty of model innovations are out there, but P&G ain't that kind of brand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I recently came across a digital marketing trade publication which was advertising a conference in Australia (Melbourne I think, I may be wrong).

The key subject of the conference was to be the loss of trust from consumers due to the indiscriminate collection of personal data by advertising companies / channels.

The discussion wasn't around whether or not the advertising industry should curtail this data collection, or perhaps be more responsible with it's use. The discussion was about how to change the customer's perception that this data collection was a bad thing at all. I then realised how out of touch this industry was with reality. As the article stated "Reality was always there for anyone who wanted to see it. An idiot blogger I know has been writing about it for almost 10 years."

I'm admittedly anti-advertising (especially the current approaches to "digital" marketing) but I do see it's worth when done in a responsible, balanced way. This insight into the way the industry reacts to the concerns of the customers has only confirmed my previous negative opinion.

I'm not sure if cutting out these "holding companies" from the equation will result in any change from the customer's point of view. It will probably just end up with P&G hiring a bunch of WPP staffers to run their in-house operation. This may kill off a few industry middle-men, but it will probably just result in higher profits for P&G with no benefits to the consumer at all.

</comment><comment><USER23> >According to MarketingWeek, Mark Pritchard of P&G had this to say on Thursday: "If entrepreneurs can buy digital media, why can't the brand team on Tide, Dawn and Crest be entrepreneurs and do the same? They can, and they will."

The big question here is, were the famous Super Bowl "Tide Ads" created by the Tide brand team, or an external consultant!?!?

Maybe P&G are emboldened to publicly speak out due to the success of that campaign?

</comment><comment><USER24> The bottom was starting to fall out ~8 years ago when I was doing analytics for a series of P&G content funnels.

That was when I first understood how valueless online ad sells are. In the sophisticated model we had (which filtered out bots, spam, paid for clicks, etc), P&G was in some instances paying at least (I only had our costs) $1000 CPM for views. Of course, in the data they saw, the numbers were far far lower.

</comment><comment><USER25> I feel there's so much to gain in the advertising space. Companies want to advertise, publishers want to make money and consumers want to learn about stuff they love. I wonder if there are startups tackling this problem. If you can create something that all 3 stakeholders love, you can change the landscape.

<comment><USER26> Not to be self-promotional but the company I work at is tackling the problem in a way that at least helps 2 of those parties if not all 3 (unified.com). Albeit my commentary below is my own personal take.

Providing transparency to the marketers enables them to provide better targeting, more efficient spend, and in turn provide a better experience for their customers.

One other note pertaining to agencies. They'll continue to exist but the world where they can just blindly spend money is coming to an end. Previously they'd have a random ad buyer in the agency just go and spend the money. Those days are coming to an end and the free margin is going to instead go to reward those agencies that more effectively manage spend.

More transparency --> More insights --> More efficient spend --> Better overall experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I love the irony of there being several ads on that page.

<comment><USER28> I read the whole article, and don't use an ad blocker. I don't recall seeing any ads on that page. I find that pretty humorous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> If that becomes a trend, wouldn't that increase the amount of poor quality, even malicious ads as ad companies have to lower prices and be less selective about their customers?</comment>


Show HN: ImageCart – Low cost unlimited public and private Docker repositories - <AUTHOR> https://imagecart.cloud <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the creator of ImageCart - I've been working on it now for a few months and a friend strongly encouraged me to share it for community feedback.

ImageCart is (going to be) a low cost private repository hosting solution for individuals and small teams. I've started with support for Docker repositories, but plan to add other repository types.

<comment><USER2> Is this like what GitHub made?

We use a private docker registry already, insanely cheap (only paying for S3 costs), why would I want this? Can you beat that price? Is this what you really want to compete on? (we're the cheapest solution!)

Who wants to buy the cheapest option of anything anyway?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is neat! Fits well for some smaller projects I have planned, and the pricing model is about right for me...

One question though - I would like to be able to work on these projects with a couple of collaborators - does ImageCart support teams?</comment>


Haskell Live Episode 2: Time To Refactor - <AUTHOR> http://haskelllive.com/episode-2-time-to-refactor/

<comment><USER2> Haskell is such an awesome language, its a shame that its fame has seemed to dwindle recently. Great job!</comment>


Why Facebook is well placed to weather an advertising boycott - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2020/07/01/why-facebook-is-well-placed-to-weather-an-advertising-boycott <comment><USER2> Does anyone actually like seeing publisher content on their Facebook feed? It'd be great if Facebook could just go back to showing me posts by my friends. Not things they've liked, not things they've been tagged in, just what they've posted. All I want the Facebook feed to show me is posts from my friends, and events that my friends are going to.

I've taken the rather drastic step of unfollowing everyone just to get the utter garbage that is the feed out of my life.

<comment><USER3> Serious question: how much would you pay each year for that?

I believe that if FB asked users to pay even a dollar a year more than half of the users would disappear.

<comment><USER4> The idea of replacing ads with direct payments isn't entirely new, and the reason for it failing far more often than not is that nobody is willing to spend what _they represent in ad-value themselves_.

If you just divide FB's revenue by users you'll get, say $20/year (no idea, someone look it up).

But if FB were to offer an ad-free experience for $20, the users willing to pay will be _the most valuable_. If you're willing to pay $20, you are probably worth $40 in advertising. Maybe you'd be willing to pay $40? Turns out those people are worth $80.

<comment><USER5> You oughta open a FB quarterly presentation some day, it is quite eye opening how off the charts they are in terms of user monetization. $20 yearly wouldn't cut it at all, in North America the average revenue per user (ARPU, trailing 12-months) is about $145 (yes, $145 * 253M monthly active users). It's not even enough to match the worldwide ARPU (about $29, for 2.6B users). The value FB extracts from it's users, particularly in NA, is simply astonishing, I'll leave you to Googling the ARPU of other web platforms to get an idea.

[https://investor.fb.com/financials/?section=quarterlyearning...](https://investor.fb.com/financials/?section=quarterlyearnings)

<comment><USER4> I actually feel quite accomplished to be less than <50% off without ever having the slightest interest in reading their financial reports.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Facebook's advertiser base is mostly direct response and fairly diversified internationally.

CNN gives a general idea of the advertiser pulse [https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/facebook-top- advertisers...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/facebook-top-advertisers/)

> Even if all 100 of Facebook's biggest advertisers joined in, they would > account for just 6% of the company's annual ad revenue.

<comment><USER7> I I get that the top 100 advertisers only make up 6% of revenue, but don't they also have the effect of bidding up the prices on advertising on certain interests and locations?

<comment><USER8> I guess you're assuming that having deep pockets they bid very high in certain areas?

Having worked with AdWords I can anecdotally say that a lot of smaller players would bid higher than the big fish. This is more dependent on margins than volume I reckon, and there are some smaller companies with very fat margins compared to large enterprises.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It does seem very convenient timing, the article talks about Starbucks spending less than half of its ad spend compared to same time last year. When push comes to shove they are bound to return to one of the biggest advertising platforms.

Facebook in that sense similar to Google as an ad platform. Google has been threatening European publications that are refusing to allow it access to reader data that it will cut them off from the advertising avenues given it already gets permissions through its google accounts.

Seems like privacy laws and social pressure almost morphing into anti- competition sentiment for the big ad platforms.

<comment><USER10> I keep feeling this is a bigger part of the story and aligned with cost cutting shirts at larger companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, Facebook weathered all their challenges quite well. I don't use Facebook, but compared to other social media sites they resisted pressure in the interest of their users, so kudos to Zuckerberg.

I hope they keep strong against ambitions to scrap politically uncomfortable content. Should give the people removing 'hate speech' a rise though. Or therapy, it is probably needed. Would have been easier to ignore all that, but well...

</comment><comment><USER12> If I were FB I'd be more worried about this:

Spending time on FB is deeply unpleasant. I finally deleted my account because I realized I hated spending time on it, and that outweighed any potential to communicate with long lost friends.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I think a lot of the people who don't think the ad boycott will be impactful are not taking into account how fb is just plain unpleasant to use now.

This boycott is also causing a conversation to occur where people are considering other options that are comparatively just a more pleasant experience.

In family alone, in the last month I've had a few different older family members who were looking for alternatives. Two of them (a couple of grandparents) surprisingly, were incredibly interested in setting up a family Discord server, so a couple weeks ago I helped them create one. In just a couple weeks it's already up to like 25 family members, and it's wildly active.

We started out with just a couple different channels–a holiday events channel so people can post holiday/birthday type party information and the general–but already some of the younger (like 14-15yo) have their own channels set up for themselves and real world friends. Considering it's only a couple weeks old and seeing the activity it has is pretty wild to see.

One of the most striking things I've noticed is, the conversation is entirely different from something you would see on FB, it feels more natural somehow.

fb has just become an unpleasant experience, and not only because it makes people not like each other and the distrust it seems to cause, but it's just not at all a pleasant experience when compared to some of the alternatives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://archive.is/jyjNn](https://archive.is/jyjNn)

</comment><comment><USER15> Does brand advertising even work on FB? All these big brands pulling out seems like PR more than anything that is really going to hurt FB long term. Seems like the big money is in D2C and retargeting, which (AFAIK) is not cost effective for the big brand advertisers.

<comment><USER16> This is exactly Ben Thompson's point too. In the Dithering podcast he mentioned that brand advertising simply does not work well on Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The key to making the feed more tolerable from an advertisement perspective is to methodically remove all the "interests" they've collected about you:

[https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/](https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/)

Advertisers buy into Facebook's ontology in order to target the ads. If you have no interests you'll likely not get targeted. Very few advertisers reach out to generic "male in their 30s", etc.

Then turn of all the other setting such as "Ads based on data from partners", etc.

<comment><USER18> Thanks!

The only thing that worried me is that Facebook sees me as someone with "Close friends of Women with a Birthday in 7-30 days"

That just sounds sleazy.

<comment><USER17> It would be interesting to know how they've built out this ontology. I'm sure they seeded it with something that they acquired from some company that specializes in this sort of thing.

I think that's how they got in trouble a few years back because their initial one had subjects like "Nazi", etc., and you could buy ads targeting people interested in Nazis. I'm sure they've since gone through and methodically cleared out those sorts of subjects.

<comment><USER19> The "company that specializes in this sort of thing" is called... Facebook. They look at your friends and their listed birthdays to generate an ad category...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Facebook aren't infallible. Nearly every social media went parabolic growth so far. It's inherent to social media. It growths while the network effect encourages people to talk about it and join it, it wanes when interest fades and people you don't want to see end up there, and you grow tired of seeing them, and as people who you joined to socialize with leave, you leave too.

Facebook will eventually fall. They will desperately try to buy their competition. But the inherently parabolic behavior of social networks will catch up with them and eventually one competition will not agree to be bought.

The most interesting part is that those networks don't realize their inherently parablic growth and usually ending up behaving like they are still growing exponentially at the peak of their growth, quickening the decline.

<comment><USER21> Your theory is based on other social networks that were both never as big or mainstream and that didn't have the money to buy up competitors.

<comment><USER22> GP also forgot about Snapchat, the one competitor that did not agree to be bought. Facebook, in response, just copied Snapchat features in Instagram, and waited them out. Because they could.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just wonder if some of these advertisers will notice if their brand advertising is even necessary when you're already household name. I also wonder if the boycotts will lower the cost of ads across the platform in general because you have less people competing for space.

<comment><USER24> Big brands need to spend quite a bit of money to keep the brand recognition going. That's why they spend what they spend on FB and also a few millions on 1 day events with limited reach but "high value".

It "works", but it really can't be analytically measured ( isn't that convenient? )

<comment><USER25> Consider the case of starbucks: I think the combination of people sticking to daily routines, ubiquitous store placement, and the headaches a heavy caffeine consumer gets when they stop will ensure their brand recognition stays high even when they no longer advertise on facebook.

<comment><USER24> Yes but most companies aren't in that business and don't have a giant billboard in every street corner in all cities ( at least it looks like it ).

It's an expensive billboard but the billboard it self generates the revenue and the cups are the flyers that infiltrate every corner of society. Most companies have to fight for attention every second of the day.

the ROI? who knows but most CEO's are not willing to learn the answer if it's "you failed as CEO because you didn't spend enough on marketing and now it's too late".

Also, nobody was fired for buying IBM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Of all the reasons to boycott Facebook, why did it have to be their free speech / anti-censorship policy?

I am proud to have avoided Facebook for years now due to privacy and abuse of skinner-boxing

</comment><comment><USER27> no sub, so can't read, but do I need to? the reason is quite obvious.

1\. the entire reason there can be a boycott _at all_ is that FB is a primary ad platform. if FB were some insignificant flea of an ad network, a boycott wouldn't matter at all and wouldn't be organizeable, and not newsworthy.

2\. having that kind of reach is powerful. every dollar spent there pays back. i know that many producers can't even spend enough on FB ads for lack of capital. There are entire finance companies built on giving you capital _specifically so you can increase your FB spend_. One of them has been highlighted here before, I can't recall the name though.

So there you have it. don't buy ads, watch your revenue drop. Advertisers are only boycotting (for the most part) because it's convenient. They want to reduce their spend, anyway. Once they are ready to increase their spend, they'll be back and be silent on it as well.

It's just so reminiscent of CSR. I'd actually collect the list of boycott companies, and once they return, boycott them. But it isn't worth the effort. I am not using their boycott as a virtue signal. It's just deceptive advertising, as usual.

</comment><comment><USER28> They shouldn't be too cocky, all someone has to do is start a boycott campaign of companies still advertising on Facebook which might place pressure on those companies to drop off from Facebook. For these big companies, they might also be shocked if they notice no change in their sales after dropping off from Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER29> Reddit deleted the_donald? WTF?

<comment><USER30> Yup and they censor any mention of thedonald.win which is a clone of the subreddit.

<comment><USER31> I've seen multiple mentions of thedonald.win on reddit. Perhaps whichever posts you'd read that mentioned it also contained rude content?

<comment><USER30> Well to be more accurate I saw a moderator claim that any comment that mentions it gets flagged to him and even if he allows the comment, it will reappear in the moderation queue.

<comment><USER32> One mod on one subreddit? Which ones? Again, it is simply not true that this is being generally censored. That string is everywhere on reddit:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+thedonald....](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+thedonald.win)

<comment><USER33> I just posted a comment saying thedonald.win on my own subreddit and sure enough it was gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If only you could buy the ad-space yourself and sell it. Users select who gets to show them ads.

</comment><comment><USER26> Of all the reasons to boycott Facebook, why did it have to be their free speech / anti-censorship policy?

<comment><USER35> Late stage capitalism

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think many observers are missing the point here. It is not merely that Facebook can weather the big spenders leaving their platform (which may _also_ be true).

Imagine Biden becomes the next president. There will be far less outrage porn in a year or two, which would be very bad for Facebook. In other words, less outrage porn = less engagement. Less engagement = less advertisers. Even if the big companies make only 6% or so of their revenue, a 50% drop in engagement will be a tremendous loss for Facebook. Unlike Google ads, which are a function of economic activity, Facebook's ads are not based on search intent. I suppose they could be called more a function of people's psychology and need to engage with social media. So without sufficient levels of engagement, Facebook will lose a lot of money very quickly.

On the other hand, if Trump becomes president again, he will be less likely to significantly curb Twitter, since he needs it really badly. And he is more likely to go after the other social media platforms. At that point he wouldn't even be running for re-election again, so he can act as pettily as he wants and do a lot of showmanship to please his base. Facebook wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of his ledger.

Lastly, there are only a few months to go until the election. The likely damage in that short time span is far smaller than the possible benefits.

Facebook is just hedging its bets here.

<comment><USER37> Facebook isn't hedging any bets, it's just not giving into the mob like behavior by the advertisers. Facebook knows that the advertisement dollars were anyways not going to be coming to FB due to the recession, and if they take a political stand at this moment, then they are inviting regulatory risks from the other side.

Facebook is staying neutral, and not giving into any pressure, mostly because Zuckerberg's job is safe and FB has plenty of cash!</comment></comment>


Inside the hotel converted from Karosta Prison (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2358086/Karosta-Prison-Inside-converted-hotel-guests-verbally-abused-sleep-concrete-floors.html <comment><AUTHOR> There is a better quality version of the video for those interested: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQZGppeO1lY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQZGppeO1lY)</comment>


David Arenberg Reflects on Being Jewish in State Prison - <AUTHOR> http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2009/winter/a-jew-in-prison#.UYKBuBkhe2E <comment><USER2> Amazing. It never ceases to amaze me at the amount of hate people can feel for someone they've never met...</comment>


ZFS on Linux v0.7.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://list.zfsonlinux.org/pipermail/zfs-announce/2017-July/000015.html <comment><USER2> I use ZoL for my home-server (5x3TB RAIDZ) and couldn't be happier, never had an issue too. The features really spoiled me compared to other filesystems/volume-managers. The only issue that irks me is that I can't resize a pool after it was created, can't add new disks, can't remove one (without risking parity).

Recently I tried running a simple BTRFS SSD Mirror for only a single KVM virtual machine, I thought compression would be neat since they are just two cheap 120GB SSDs and I wanted to have a spare if one of them gave up the ghost.

At first everything was great but after I ran a btrfs scrub, and it found ~4000 uncorrectable errors, my VM was broken beyond repair and had to be restored from backup. The SSDs SMART data was fine, there weren't any loose cables, everything worked great, no reported (ECC) memory errors... I have no proof but it seems that BTRFS just decided to destroy itself.

I have since moved my SSDs to a ZoL mirror and (after running scrubs every two days for two weeks) had no further corruption, silent or otherwise. To me, this means that btrfs just isn't stable enough for production use - while ZoL is.

<comment><USER3> > The only issue that irks me is that I can't resize a pool after it was > created, can't add new disks, can't remove one (without risking parity).

This is what eliminates it from home use for me.

It means to expand the pool the only way is to copy everything off (so you need enough spare storage to hold your entire pool), rebuild, then copy it back. The alternative is don't expand, and just add additional pools, but that starts losing benefits quickly (not having to think about where there's free space when adding something, not having to look in multiple locations to find something).

Can anyone who has been using ZFS long-term at home comment? How do you add more space?

<comment><USER4> I have run ZFS at home since 2011 and migrated to larger drives one time: from 6x3TB to 6x4TB. The only downside is that the slabs are smaller compared to a native 6x4TB array.

<comment><USER5> That's not the problem here.

The problem is having a 6x3TB pool and turning it into a 7x3TB pool, which is arguably much much cheaper than buying 6x4TB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, just wow. These perf improvements are great. ASIC accelerated filesystems is just crazy

### Performance

* ARC Buffer Data (ABD) - Allocates ARC data buffers using scatter lists of pages instead of virtual memory. This approach minimizes fragmentation on the system allowing for a more efficient use of memory. The reduced demand for virtual memory also improves stability and performance on 32-bit architectures.

* Compressed ARC - Cached file data is compressed by default in memory and uncompressed on demand. This allows for an larger effective cache which improves overall performance.

* Vectorized RAIDZ - Hardware optimized RAIDZ which reduces CPU usage. Supported SIMD instructions: sse2, ssse3, avx2, avx512f, and avx512bw, neon, neonx2

* Vectorized checksums - Hardware optimized Fletcher-4 checksums which reduce CPU usage. Supported SIMD instructions: sse2, ssse3, avx2, avx512f, neon

* GZIP compression offloading - Hardware optimized GZIP compression offloading with QAT accelerator.

* Metadata performance - Overall improved metadata performance. Optimizations include a multi-threaded allocator, batched quota updates, improved prefetching, and streamlined call paths.

* Faster RAIDZ resilver - When resilvering RAIDZ intelligently skips sections of the device which don't need to be rebuilt.

<comment><USER7> > ASIC accelerated filesystems is just crazy

What?

<comment><USER8> I guess this refers specifically to the following bullets:

* Vectorized RAIDZ - Hardware optimized RAIDZ which reduces CPU usage. Supported SIMD instructions: sse2, ssse3, avx2, avx512f, and avx512bw, neon, neonx2

* Vectorized checksums - Hardware optimized Fletcher-4 checksums which reduce CPU usage. Supported SIMD instructions: sse2, ssse3, avx2, avx512f, neon

* GZIP compression offloading - Hardware optimized GZIP compression offloading with QAT accelerator.

All use vector and/or SIMD instructions on the CPU, thoughh QuickAssist (QAT above) is available on dedicated add-in card also.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I don't equate SIMD instructions to being ASIC's.

<comment><USER9> Yeah an ASIC is an _Application-specific integrated circuit_. SIMD instructions are not application-specific.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for correcting me. I was wrong. But it is nice to see acceleration in the FS space using SIMD intrinsics on the chips we already own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Big fan of ZFS and while there was an appearance of a lull while ZoL was stuck in 0.6.x for so long, this is a very welcome update :)

Warning to all that use ZFS to host the /boot file system, however: GRUB doesn't presently support all the features added to this release. Be careful about the features you enable!

<comment><USER11> This is why I still suggest keeping it on ext of some method and then just backing it up to zfs. Though now I'm wondering if you could put a raid1 on a zdev that matches the real disk and get benefits that way.....

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice - zfs allow is now working. That's big news since it means users can snapshot.

</comment><comment><USER13> With both Linux and FreeBSD being open source, I am curious what is it that prevents ZFS from being a first-class, stable component in Linux right now, just as it already is in FreeBSD.

<comment><USER14> Maybe it's fixed with this version, but we've seen kernel pauses on the order of minutes under high memory / OOM situations, with ZoL trying to get memory.

<comment><USER15> What was your setup like? I've encountered similar - the cause ended up being a mix of xattrs (I don't use them so I just disabled the feature) and needing to tune zfs to be less aggressive handling my consumer-grade disks.

<comment><USER16> Can you expand on what you did to tune things?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's a crying shame that DKMS is so horribly broken on RHEL/CentOS/SL. Nothing like having it blithely make weak-updates symlinks to the ZFS and SPL modules that were compiled for your oldest still-installed kernel, only for those symlinks to end up pointing nowhere after that old kernel gets deleted. Oops! Your zpools now won't import until you clean up the mess. Been there, done that too many times.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I have to play the game of deleting the zfs and spl packages, deleting weak-modules and reinstalling on the new kernel. It's expected, but silly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Has ZoL made a unified page cache yet? This is a major reason I won't use it.

<comment><USER20> No. You are still reliant on the Arc which is kept on a slab outside of Linux's traditional page cache.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Encryption didn't make it in? That's too bad!

<comment><USER22> Yeah I've been watching the pull request eagerly but not quite there :(

[https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/5769](https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/5769)

Judging by the comments from today though it sounds like it will be merged very shortly after this release. So that's good news :D

I'm also wanting to look at this "OPAL" native drive encryption stuff, which requires among other things a UEFI plugin and some other bits. That would be a useful solution also though much more versatile here in ZFS for example doing per-user stuff, and also encrypted send without decrypting

Lots of good changes in 0.7 otherwise!

<comment><USER23> Wait, has encryption hit open-source ZFS at all? Can I use it on FreeBSD?

<comment><USER24> Don't know if you can use it on FreeBSD yet, but tcaputi added it to Linux here: [https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/5769](https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/5769) Matt Ahrens approved the changes, and hopefully it'll get rolled in ZoL soon.

Full disclosure, I work with Tom at Datto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thank you and congrats on release - beer time

(running release candidate on laptop via Arch without issues and current stable on many servers)

</comment><comment><USER26> Wow. What a massive release.

</comment><comment><USER27> For as much propaganda as I see about ZFS, I've never once encountered it in the wild.

Most of the companies here I've never even heard of and the ones I have heard of aren't companies I would take into account when choosing a file system.

[http://open-zfs.org/wiki/Companies](http://open-zfs.org/wiki/Companies)

In all my years I've never encountered or needed this file system, and every time it's mentioned it sounds like it's more trouble to run it than its worth.

<comment><USER28> Are you talking about ZFS on linux or just ZFS itself? It's pretty wild to say "it's more trouble to run it than its worth" just about ZFS when you run it on FreeBSD or Solaris.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Part of the challenge with ZFS is its amazing and (almost) nobody uses it. It creates a weird chicken-and-egg scenario with regards to familiarity in production. If Google can get away without using it then why do you need to have it? The reality is: you don't. It's another incredible technical achievement that was amazing for its time, but the world of containers, speed of systems, and abstraction of physical machines have made it more or less a moot point for everyone other than SAN administrators or hardcore COW optimization junkies.

<comment><USER30> " If Google can get away without using it then why do you need to have it?"

I think that comment has to go on the Best of 'Shit HN Says' corkboard ere long. I mean, when I am faced w/ a technical challenge at work, or at home...why would my first thought NOT be 'What would Google do in this situation?'

<comment><USER31> I assume the thinking goes like this :

ZFS was designed for enterprises. Enterprise software has requirements of high stability, scale etc. Google is probably on the extreme end of these problems. So if Google considered and rejected ZFS it probably means it was not very good.

What probably really happened was that Google was already too invested in Google File System and therefore did not give other file systems a fair chance

<comment><USER32> Google's big enough that it, most likely, has something that the public ceph project is a pale imitation of.

Actually, they're big enough that something between what ceph can do and what backblaze does is probably their /archive/ backend.

They probably have all of the fast stuff on 'disposable' temporary copies in RAM or SSDs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I made a PWA Markdown editor, with some shortcuts and customisations - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JP1016/Markdown <comment><USER2> Looks really solid! Can this easily be used in a more compact view? For example in the compose view for an email client, I don't imagine having a full screen with splits.

Is there a way to make it small, hide some things? On Slate, there's a way to type markdown and have it auto rendered. Is there such a mode?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for checking it out, currently there is no option to have a compact view and embedding inside mail compose screen, i might have to create an extension for that to be possible. i made it to create GitHub readmes quickly , using templates which like license or contributors list which can be used across multiple projects</comment></comment>


Duck Duck Go is tracking and personalizing results - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1070755694314311680 <comment><USER2> whoever post this didn't read the last tweet in the thread, which was the point of the whole thing. "The reality is that Duck Duck Go probably isn't personalizing. Instead, it's having differences in results for the exact reason we explained Google might have slight differences -- the dynamic and distributed nature of search:"

<comment><AUTHOR> Duck Duck Go did a study using incognito mode to accuse Google of tracking users even when they're not logged in.

If you use DDG's same methodology on DDG itself, then it appears that DDG is also tracking and personalizing.

 _Duck Duck Go says it does no tracking of users. If that's true, then you would expect normal and private browsing to provide exactly the same results. But if you get differences, by the report's logic, that might suggest that Duck Duck Go is tracking and personalizing results._

This either falsifies Duck Duck Go's accusations of Google, or it shows that Duck Duck Go is tracking and personalizing.

Probably the former.

<comment><USER3> > This either falsifies Duck Duck Go's accusations of Google, or it shows that > Duck Duck Go is tracking and personalizing.

I think that is a false dichotomy; it's entirely possible that the distributed search is just _part_ of the reason that Google's search results are different, and that DDG's accusations of filtering are also true.

I don't know if this is actually the case (I didn't look in to the matter very deeply), just saying that it's possible.

<comment><USER2> I think the results still throw their methodology into question, it does not give us a clear answer one way or the other on either point

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminder that DDG released the Python scripts they say were used to analyze Google's results a few days ago. Danny Sullivan didn't use them for this tweet: [https://github.com/duckduckgo/filter-bubble- study](https://github.com/duckduckgo/filter-bubble-study)

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel that distinguishing tracking and bubbling is important.

Essentially with my limited knowledge I would say that if "generic search engine" does not profile you individually and uses only the information you provide in a single session (which include accurate location via IP and external data as political preferences of your neighbourhood) it is not tracking.

</comment><comment><USER6> just because it's tailored to the browser or whatever Metadata it spills, doesn't mean it's tracking on a personal level.

maybe all Firefox incognito windows machines in Finland get specific results. no tracking needed for that.</comment>


LendingClub Loan Buyers Retreat After Shakeup; U.S. Probes - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-16/lendingclub-receives-department-of-justice-grand-jury-subpoena <comment><USER2> I've used Lending Club on both sides of the marketplace (Lender and Borrower) and I really love the platform. So much easier than dealing with banks and the rates have always been fair. It's a shame they've made these missteps, but ultimately I think they'll come out stronger.

<comment><USER3> Aren't they being accused of misrepresenting over $20 million worth of loans to institutional investors? It sounds like they are dealing with some serious fraud allegations. How will they survive? It looks to me like the company is imploding right now.

<comment><USER4> No, it was 3 million. They originate over $100 million per month in loans so it was a very small amount and the data they fudged was not related to the credit quality. The only reason to be concerned is if you believe this is only the tip of the iceberg. Those fears were put to rest yesterday though when the new CEO released a letter stating that they engaged an accounting firm to audit their entire portfolio and found no additional discrepancies.

<comment><USER3> Ah, some papers are reporting that New York is interested in $22 million in loans to one specific client. 3 million sounds a lot less troublesome.

<comment><USER4> The total amount of loans sold to the client was $22 million but only $3 million of those didn't conform. The issue at the heart of this is the legal language in the agreement that was shown to the loan applicant when they applied for the loan. It was really a stupid thing for them to fudge and the returned loans have already been snapped up by other clients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> LendingClub is carrying more than $5 Billion in loans on its balance sheet [1]. That means $5 Billion still owed to Lending Club by retail borrowers. At an average of, say, $20,000 [2] per loan, that is 250,000 borrowers.

That same $5 Billion is owed by Lending Club to lenders. A portion of the lenders are institutions. The remainder are also at the retail level. I don't know the average amount loaned per investor, but I'd guess there are more than 100,000 lenders.

Contractually, through Lending Club in the middle, those hundreds of thousands of borrowers owe the hundred thousand lenders that $5 Billion, which will be paid off over (at most) 5 years.

As the middle-man, Lending Club collects about 1% in fees. That is $50 million in fees outanding.

If Lending Club ceases operation, that $5 Billion is still contractually owed by the borrowers to the lenders. In Lending Club's prospectus, under bankruptcy or if they become unable to process loan payments, the whole thing transfers to a trust, 'Portfolio Financial Servicing Company ("PFSC")'[3] to continue collecting from borrowers and paying lenders.

This is shaping up to be a pretty interesting situation. If legal expenses, ballooning compensation and declining loan origination revenues eat up Lending Club's cash and drive them to bankruptcy, a bankruptcy court judge is going to have to decide on the fate of these hundreds of thousands of Lending Club customers.

Is there a precedent for this? Would a fail-over to PFSC definitely happen? Is it possible a judge could rule that money being paid back by borrowers is to be used to pay off LC stock holders, should shareholder lawsuits prevail?

[1] [https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ALC&fstype=ii&ei=vzI7...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ALC&fstype=ii&ei=vzI7V7mxIeGqiQKLrblg) (select Balance Sheet)

[2] I don't know the actual average, but the max is $35,000. The average may be much lower since many loans are paid down below $10k already.

[3] [http://kb.lendingclub.com/investor/articles/Investor/What- ha...](http://kb.lendingclub.com/investor/articles/Investor/What-happens-if- Lending-Club-goes-out-of-business)

<comment><USER6> > the whole thing transfers to a trust, 'Portfolio Financial Servicing Company > ("PFSC")'[3] to continue collecting from borrowers and paying lenders.

The "paying lenders" part is partially correct. Only the Lenders that are part of LC Trust I, Lending Club Advisors (LCA), and one another entity (name escapes me at the moment) will get paid as these entities are Bankruptcy Remote Vehicle (BRV). As I mentioned in another comment, the Retail Lenders don't have any BRV protection so they will be considered unsecured creditor of Lending Club.

As debt is senior to equity, debt holders will get paid before equity holders. The unsecured creditor is subordinate to any senior debt holder, the retail lenders will be last one to be paid before equity holders. Source: Read the SEC Filings - prospectus and 10-K.

Also from your PFSC link:

"If the underlying loans are determined to be part of Lending Club's bankruptcy estate, PFSC may not be able to make payments on the Notes."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The scandal hurt LendingClub's ability to hold onto some of its key personnel. To retain managers and attract new ones, the company said it will need to boost pay packages.

Details of some of those arrangements were disclosed Monday: Acting CEO Scott Sanborn received a grant of restricted stock valued at $5 million and his salary was increased to $500,000. Chief Financial Officer Carrie Dolan received $3.5 million of restricted stock units and her salary was increased to $400,000. Both executives also received $500,000 cash awards that will pay out in a year."

Out of curiosity, how common is this? To me this sounds like grabbing everything you can and heading for the exits before the building burns down, but I'm not familiar with the pay range for CEOs/CFOs in their location. You don't hear anything about others in the company receiving similar packages.

<comment><USER8> These stock grants will vest over time. The retention bonuses pay out in a year.

A lot can be done to turn the ship around in a year. If they don't, the stock grants (depending on issue price) will be worth a lot less than originally issued, and they'll mainly have a highly taxed bonus. The grants are to prevent opportunity cost of leaving from being considered.

If they turn it around, the stock grants will be easily worth it. The company was worth $3b+ weeks ago. Now it's dipped below $1.5b. If they can fix that, that's a small price to pay.

<comment><USER9> They're stock grants not stock options. They're worth something even if the stock goes down (except to 0).

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure what you are trying to correct or clarify in the comment you are replying to. Did you mean to reply elsewhere?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Its also worth noting that they did things like, cancel their internship program. Things must be very serious.

<comment><USER12> Lots of money no longer willing to chase returns through subprime investments.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is going from bad to worse, shareholder lawsuit over financial/operational controls: [http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0Y81QT](http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0Y81QT)

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a lot of money in there

<comment><USER14> Hopefully you'll get some of it back.

<comment><USER15> LendingClub isn't the counterparty; even if they went bankrupt there would be procedures to move the loans to a different servicer.

<comment><USER6> Nope. If you are retail lender, you are actually lending to Lending Club and not to borrowers. With this structure, you will be an unsecured creditor to Lending Club in the event of LC going out of business. I like to call it that you are buying Corporate Junk Bond from Lending Club with variable yield.

<comment><USER14> This is correct. If you have money with Lending Club or any of these other unsecured P2P loan companies you should understand exactly what you've invested in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone at all concerned about the DOJ subpoena? Lending Club is being investigated by the DOJ.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does it mean that their loan rates will go up? Is it a good time to invest?

<comment><USER9> To be honest, the street smart investors will get in there soon. With all of the scrutiny, the following loan offerings will be their most by the numbers yet. At least that's how typical scandal clean ups happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This isn't surprising. The entire personal loan/payday loan industry is terribly corrupt. This only comes a few days after Google banned ads for payday loan companies.

I think regulation is coming soon to the alternative-loan industry as a whole. In regards to the LendingClub specifically, I can't speak for much since the details in the article are lacking, but it appears that there was some kind of falsification or "data errors" on securitized loans sold to banks or third parties. Based on how they are structured, I would guess that an investors audit of loans originated by Lending Club came up with some inconsistencies that didn't meet the purchase guidelines, triggering Lending Club to have to buy back the entirety of the security.

<comment><USER4> Comparing LendingClub to a payday loan is dishonest. A Pay day loan company charges interest that amounts to an APR of 100%+ [0]. LendingClub's rates range from 5% - 30% [1] and the overwhelming majority of the loans they issue are on the lower end of that scale. Credit cards charge interest rates of 12% - 30% for comparison.

Here is a better article about the issue that caused the resignation of the CEO.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-10/jefferies-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-10/jefferies- said-to-have-pressed-lendingclub-to-improve-disclosure)

The specific information that was changed on the loans in question was the application date. It had nothing to do with credit quality, or rates to consumers. The reason they changed the dates was because the bank they were selling them to wanted different wording of the legal language in the loan application document and they asked that the language be changed. LendingClub employees changed the application date on some loans to make it appear as though the customers had applied for the loan after that legal language change happened when in fact they had agreed to only the old terms.

It's not honest for sure and shouldn't have been done but at the same time it was caught and corrected and isn't the end of the world. A lot of the negativity narrative is coming from hedge funds who have piled into short positions in LC stock.

[0] [http://www.consumerfinance.gov/askcfpb/1567/what-payday- loan...](http://www.consumerfinance.gov/askcfpb/1567/what-payday-loan.html)

[1] [https://www.lendingclub.com/public/rates-and- fees.action](https://www.lendingclub.com/public/rates-and-fees.action)

<comment><USER18> Do you have references for that last claim?

<comment><USER4> One of the main places that LendingClub loan investors discuss the company is in a forum hosted by the site LendAcademy[0] Starting in January of this year someone claiming to be from a hedge fund was in the forum saying they had shorted the stock and trying to convince everyone the company was garbage and generally causing a ruckus[1]. After the news about the CEO resigning broke last week another hedge fund guy went on Bloomberg to trash LC. [2]

[0] [http://www.lendacademy.com/forum/index.php](http://www.lendacademy.com/forum/index.php) [1] [http://www.lendacademy.com/forum/index.php?topic=3606.0](http://www.lendacademy.com/forum/index.php?topic=3606.0) [2] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-12/jim- chanos...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-12/jim-chanos-says- we-were-short-lending-club)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Syrian "Cyber Army" hijacks Anonymous+ website [maybe nsfw] - <AUTHOR> http://www.anonplus.org/ This is a screenshot: http://imgur.com/7LZmQ <comment><USER2> Put a warning up at least!!!

I was just about to eat lunch! Not no more...,

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. Sorry about that.</comment></comment>


Show HN: ReSRC – Free programming learning resources incl. 500 free books - <AUTHOR> http://resrc.io/

<comment><USER2> Talk about information overload. :/</comment>


Ask HN: Curriculum for kids coding Summer camp? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
I'll be teaching a week-long kids coding camp this Summer at our local university. It will be targeted at 3rd-6th graders.
I've taught classes in the past using Google's CS First program [0]. However, some of the organizers are worried that too many local kids have already done CS First and may get bored. I've been tasked with finding some alternative programs.
Any recommendations?
Thanks
https://www.cs-first.com <comment><USER2> Berkeley Snap [1] and MIT Scratch [2] come to mind.

I'm not a teacher, so I'm unsure if these are applicable to your age/time constraints, but they might be worthwhile.

[1] [http://snap.berkeley.edu/](http://snap.berkeley.edu/)

[2] [https://scratch.mit.edu/](https://scratch.mit.edu/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm familiar with Scratch because that's what CS First users. I'm wondering if there are any decent curriculums to go with Scratch or Snap.

Thanks.

<comment><USER2> This is a bit late, so just in case you don't check your discussions ('threads' link), I sent you an email. This might help:

Computer Science Field Guide (canterbury.ac.nz)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030532)

Specifically, this comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030861](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030861)

adpirz 28 minutes ago

Same folks did this for younger grades: [http://csunplugged.org/](http://csunplugged.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in the same boat...have committed to teaching "STEM" related programming concepts for a week of camp this summer...

I'm leaning toward something R-Pi 2-related...exposure to Linux, etc...though that might increase fees...

For what it may be worth I've learned that summer camps love the idea of kids taking home a gift for their parents...in days past this might have been a pencil holder made at the Craft Hut from woven reeds...

So, I'm looking for a project that meets both requirements ...still looking, but will bookmark this and check in later for more ideas, or to share...

Good luck!...

<comment><USER2> I looked for an email address in your profile, but you didn't put it in the 'about' section, so there's no way to contact you. Hopefully you'll check the 'threads' link on HN and see this.

Computer Science Field Guide (canterbury.ac.nz)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030532)

Particularly this comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030861](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11030861)

adpirz 28 minutes ago

Same folks did this for younger grades: [http://csunplugged.org/](http://csunplugged.org/)</comment></comment>


Reasons not to start an online magazine - <AUTHOR> https://theotherlifenow.com/reasons-not-to-start-an-online-magazine/ <comment><AUTHOR> "TLDR: The magazine model is not the best choice for indie intellectuals trying to start something. Two reasons: (1) Accelerating digital culture requires you to move fast and group projects move slower than solo projects, and (2) accelerating media segmentation rewards increasingly unique, hyper- niche content, so smaller, in-house production teams are better able to express unique micro-niches. I discuss some other social-psychological bases for this view, and acknowledge some exceptions."</comment>


Free for  Android developers - <AUTHOR>

Hi Free For Android developers Run your Apps as SaaS model
We have new service that allow you to run your App as SaaS model price
Accept payment from Paypal and Other
We Invite you to Join us For free
all you need to do just send us mail with ( Free For  Android developer )
Thanks
H.shtia <comment><USER2> Flagging this on account of lack of clarity. Seems suspicious to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why you think like that ? We looking for developers to join our new service

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why you think like that ? We looking for developers to join our new service</comment>


HappyEdit: A Vim-inspired, modern, open source text editor - <AUTHOR> http://happyedit.se/

<comment><USER2> I am wondering in what way a "modern vim" isn't "vim". GVim exists, and plugin management is a problem frankly solved years ago.

I also wonder how he is going to support modern features that Vim currently has with a web-based editor. Can I script this in my choice of modern languages? Python? Ruby?

If I were going to change any single thing about Vim, it would be to make MzScheme scripting support a first class citizen, and slowly re-engineer the backend to be more Emacs styled. Core C (or whatever, but C out of momentum) functions with the rest of the system build up in Scheme. I think it would be foolish to call such an improvement "modernizing" though, since it is hardly a new idea. ;)

<comment><USER3> > _If I were going to change any single thing about Vim, it would be to make > MzScheme scripting support a first class citizen, and slowly re-engineer the > backend to be more Emacs styled. Core C (or whatever, but C out of momentum) > functions with the rest of the system build up in Scheme._

Thank god there are people who share this vision! I have solemnly promised to myself that I will write a new vim in exactly this fashion if no one has done so in the next 10 years.

One thing that I don't understand about contemporary developers is the aversion to running their editors in a terminal. The benefits of doing this are significant (e.g. session management with tmux, remote pair programming via the same), but programmers leave them behind for what is ultimately just eye candy.

The major reasons for this are the difficulty in binding complex key chords in a terminal, and the poor implementation of OS X's Terminal.app (both of which can be worked around today with a little work, and a proper X terminal). If this terminal-based workflow is going to thrive in the future, what will need to be modernized is the terminal.¹

So you heard it here first: if a new vim built atop a Lisp interpreter running on a new data-centric, mixed character-grid/HTML5-webview terminal emulator does not appear in the next 10 years, I'm on the job.²

¹ Some excellent musings on the subject: <http://lubutu.com/idea/ivo>

² This would all be easier if I could love to learn Emacs, but Vim modal editing is a pernicious addiction.

<comment><USER4> As tikhonj mentioned, Emacs evil-mode is very likely exactly what you're looking for. I had considered myself a hardcore vim user, but I felt the call of Slime and org-mode. When I finally took a serious look at Emacs, I became convinced that Emacs with evil-mode is the ultimate editor for vim lovers.

<comment><USER3> What concerns me about vim emulation modes is the uncanny valley mentioned by another poster. Working in a second-class interface doesn't sound that great.

However, that's pretty strong praise, so I promise I'll give it a shot before trying to birth a new editor into the world.

<comment><USER5> I've used Emacs for the last 10+ years first with my own custom keybindings and recently with keybindings with 'default' CUA bindings like you find them in almost any other modern application. Before I switched to Emacs I used vi/Vim for almost 10 years. Also, even when I had switched to Emacs I still used Vim on the commandline and on remote servers but not in any advanced way.

I tried out evil-mode a couple of weeks ago just on a lark and I am staying with it. You really get the best of both world[1] this way. It might be a little strange at times but I wouldn't describe the usage as a second-class interface. Just different. I'd rather describe the default Emacs keybindings as a second-class interface :-)

[1] this will not mean much if you've never used Emacs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can almost guarantee that it would be easier to fix whatever it is you don't like about vim than to start from scratch.

Too many developers have this conceit that it's easier to start from scratch. _Sometimes_ that's true, but usually not. Usually there's an exaggerated fear of extending other people's code.

Of course the world is big enough for another project, and you _might_ make the next great editor. But be realistic about how much effort went into something like vim, and don't think you're going to single-handedly replace it in a month.

<comment><USER7> You should have checked out the project before ranting.

1\. The major difficulty in writing an editor is in writing the editor core. He didn't write it from scratch but used existing ACE editor.

2\. VIM is a huge mass of C code. Working on a huge mass of C code is ridiculously slow.

He's writing in JavaScript and using html for the UI - this is orders of magnitude faster.

<comment><USER8> _He's writing in JavaScript and using html for the UI - this is orders of magnitude faster._

In what sense is that true?

<comment><USER9> Faster for them to code with compared to C I would imagine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Using Chrome packaged apps makes compilation problematic if not impossible as well as running command-line functions.

The file model for Chrome packaged apps is similar to the Mac App Store in that you can access files but you have to get explicit permission for each one you open. There's also an internal file system to the app that you can create.

I write HTML5 apps but also do quite a bit of Java moving between different projects during the course of the day and running some command-line functions too. Happy Edit as it appears today wouldn't give me parity to how I use vim.

If I were on a Chromebook, I would probably just use tmux/screen and a ssh session.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks great. Is it releasable at the moment? It looks like the indiegogo campaign may not succeed - sorry :(.

<http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit> (3 days left, $805 / $10,000 raised).

Have you considered alternate ways of funding your development? Like subscriptions? (it's a web app right?). Maybe figure out a price... let's say $10 a month or $100 a year and get people to pay for a yearly subscription up front.

It may not allow you to focus on it full time at first, but could give you the incentive to continue improving the product and eventually work on it full time.

<comment><USER12> I think that the author will get all the funds regardless of reaching the goal. It is the first time I see indiegogo and it would be quite different from kickstarter, but that's what their page seems to indicate:

>Flexible Funding campaign >This campaign will receive all of the funds contributed by Wed Oct 31 at 11:59PM PT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I must admit a marked lack of enthusiasm for projects like this. You already have a number of vim "clones" developed with various technologies (ysis in qt4 - dead, yi in haskell - though it has also an emacs mode, still actively developed, probably others I don't know about). They haven't managed to take off in a significant way, what is this one bringing to the table? The idea of taking on an editor with about 20 years of development behind it, even with the editor core already written, in a couple of months, is ludicrous.

And to top it all, it doesn't even work in a terminal.

<comment><USER14> The problem is attracting a large enough group of users and contributors. If you have only a handful people working on it then it will quickly fade away. I've seen this with several open source projects. One maintainer finishes college, the other changes jobs, the one guy who thought he could make a living out of it realises he's broke, the biggest contributor becomes father and all of the sudden there are too few people left. And although everybody loves the new ideas behind the project it quickly turns into an unmaintained mess and because there are so many alternatives available they'll eventually move on.

Let's face it the editor market is really really crowded. And there are tons of great editors out there. You really have to be innovative to get a foothold there. And can HappyEdit really provide that by simply being a vim-like in- browser editor with some sublime features? It is incompatible to all the existing vim plugins and has to reimplement everything vim does. The majority of vim users are probably not interested in fancy guis or even leaving the terminal ("it's not the UNIX way"(tm)). And the $10,000 he asks for will only get him 1-2 month of development. Oh and the indiegogo campaign has less than 3days left and currently only a bit more than $1,000 of the $10,000 he asks for.

So yeah I doubt that this will be a huge success.

<comment><USER13> Precisely. If you want to challenge a product with massive mindshare [1], then you need new, very compelling features, and preferably be compatible with the existing ecosystem.

1: Unless you can play "abusive monopolist".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Awesome. I'm always on the lookout for a text editor with all the cool things from Vim, but without having to fiddle with the stupid plugin and config system.

The closest thing I've found so far is Vico (<http://www.vicoapp.com/>)

<comment><USER16> Check out vundle

<http://lepture.com/work/vundle-vs-pathogen/> <https://github.com/gmarik/vundle>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It wasn't obvious on the linked page but this is available to try on Github here <https://github.com/pthulin/HappyEdit>

</comment><comment><USER18> I like the product but I really dislike the way he's trying to fund it. You know, once upon a time people would just build and launch shit, instead of begging people for money even before building it. I understand this type of Kickstarter-like campaign is really helpful for building hardware products which require upfront budget, since building hardware costs real money. But building a software? Please... If I was so motivated, I would just build it and release it.

<comment><USER19> I don't see why it's that bad. You describe it pejoratively as "begging for money", but it does take time to develop anything, and you need money to live. What's wrong with someone wanting to be able to work full-time developing it? And what's wrong if some people want to provide monetary support so the person can do that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looks really interesting, but you seriously need $10,000 ? Can I run this from a Terminal ? Without the UI but using some features from HappyEdit ?

<comment><USER21> The entire point of this project is to modernize it, and give it a user friendly UI. If you want Terminal usage, just use Vim.

<comment><USER22> Why does modernize mean not supporting a terminal interface?

<comment><USER23> I would imagine because there are many UI features that cannot be easily reproduced in the terminal and maintaining two different interfaces with very different capabilities is more trouble than it's worth.

<comment><USER2> Ideally any new system should be made UI agnostic, provided a simple default UI with few features readily accessible (perhaps accessible only though a command line of sorts), and allow users of your editor to craft their own frontends, be they TTY or web-based, or anything they may dream up in the future.

Just building the web-based editor that you want this year may be fine for this year, but I am not convinced we should be putting much effort into designing systems that don't learn from their predecessors. The classic editors can feel rickety today because they were made with the TTY, and arguably only the TTY, in mind. A system designed today should keep that in mind, and I think make future-proofing it's first and for-most concern.

I think it is also really hard to justify supporting _fewer_ features than classical editors do today. Removing the ability to implement technical features so that you can add support for UI features seems like a step backward to me. I don't think there is much (or anything) that you _couldn't_ add to Vim or Emacs, the question is just more along the lines of "can you make it _look_ how you want it too". An editor designed with UI agnosticy (is that a word?) as a first class feature should not have this problem.

<comment><USER24> I've already clicked the up arrow but I wanted to express my agreement more directly.

I agree.

That would be "Agnosticism", I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The name is horrible. Change it and it might see success.

<comment><USER26> I came here to say just this. I'm a vim user, and I have my doubts about this project, but overall I encourage people to experiment and do new things in the editor space-- so I don't begrudge this. But the name is terrible. Don't project an emotion onto your users.

<comment><USER27> Are you jokimg?

<http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=vim>

<comment><USER26> I'm as serious as a heart attack. Actually, it's really not the same thing at all, and I'm an English major-- I know that "vim" is a noun. But "happy" is an adjective. That's part of the reason why it's a bad name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> No offence, but as far as I can see, this does nothing that can't be done in vim (or one of its forks) with pathogen/vundle and the extant plugin ecosystem. Also I doubt people will want to pay if there is no native editor/terminal support. ;(

</comment><comment><USER29> this doesn't look thought out. you need way more than "1-2 months" to develop a good IDE. there's no mention of supported languages and popular features like code indexing and live compilation will never happen on a web platform.

<comment><USER30> Our web based IDE does code indexing: <http://www.rstudio.com/ide/docs/using/navigation>

Never say never...

I agree though that 1-2 months would only be scratching the surface, surely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> From <http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit>

"What will you do with the money?

The money buys time for me to work on this project. With the $10,000 that I am asking for, I expect to get 1-2 months of development. This should be enough time to finish what's on the roadmap."

Why would he need an average yearly income to be coding ± 45 days?

<comment><USER32> Where in the Western world is $10,000 an average yearly income?

<comment><USER33> In Portugal, the average wage is 777€/month, paid 14 times a year, resulting in about 10800€ a year. Not exactly 10000$, but close.

<comment><USER34> well. the euro is way more worthy than the us $. that seems a little off.

(10000$/2month still seems like a good salary... for something resembling vaporware for now.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> How is this editor "vim-inspired"? Has a vim-like editing language? (not just shortcuts, but combinable verbs, objects and modifiers) Has different modes? (normal or command, editing, ...) Is very extensible? I don't see any of those in the video, and they are vim's most important features (especially the first one).

<comment><AUTHOR> From its IndieGoGo page (<http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit>): "Already implemented: Vim like INSERT/COMMAND/NORMAL modes, keybindings and search."

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Why another web-based editor? What's wrong with a native editor?

</comment><comment><USER37> Sublime Text 2 has Vintage mode which supports Vim-like commands, is a native app, and is elegant.

However, HappyEdit has one significant advantage over ST2, in that it is open source. While I love ST2, I feel like for it to really be embraced as a great editor, it needs to be open source.

<comment><USER38> I've tried using Sublime with Vintage mode, and about 30% of the time I'm editing, I try a Vim combo and nothing happens. This isn't just for advanced Vim features -- it's for basic things like g_.

<comment><USER39> There's a VintageEx bundle that extends Vintage mode with more vim-ness. It still lacks vim-surround which is a no-go for me, and there are a few differences in behavior (off-by-one mostly) that _constantly_ throw me off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'd love for someone to remake vim, in a modern way. With a modern GUI. And with a lot of thought put into how to make vim easier to use for new users. And with a better solution for plugins and customization.

I'd love for this project to succeed, and I was ready to pay for it, but frankly, I'm skeptical, after looking at the product page. He's asking for money equal to 2 months of development. This is nowhere near, not even remotely close, to how much time it will take to get even a semi-descent version of an editor. I'm sorry, but that's just unrealistic.

Also, I'd love to see other projects he's worked on, to see he knows how to build things, before I back a project.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've been watching the video and it doesn't look bad but... how is VIMs plugin system a mess? It always worked like a charm for me.

</comment><comment><USER19> Feedback for the author:

The "Back This Project" button send this message: only click this button if you have already decided you want to pledge money.

I think more people would click on it if it was named something like: "Find Out More" or "Visit Project Page".

</comment><comment><USER41> Looks interesting. Is it possible to support real-time collaboration? By real- time collaboration I mean multiple people working on the same file and being able to see other people changing the file in real time, like Google Wave or Google Docs.

<comment><USER42> Or maybe like Vim in tmux?

<comment><USER41> But that's still only one person modifying the code and the other watching. There couldn't be two cursors/editing points at the same time.

<comment><USER42> My bad, you're right, it's not exactly the same. I just didn't think about two people working on one document in two different places at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is a great example of what you can do with chrome packaged apps. Many of the APIs associated with packaged apps are not supported in the current official release of chrome, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER44> I didn't realize this until now, but I get a kind of satisfaction from using the old CLI Vim because it's harder and uglier than neccessary. I could be equally productive in gEdit.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd like to know more but I'm in an environment where I can't watch a video. (plus I hate video...)

Is it that hard to also write some old-fasioned text as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> The author has described the editor here: <http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit> .

<comment><USER45> Weird. I didn't see that the first time I looked. Mumble. Going mad... Mumble...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If he's using HTML and JS to code this, can we expect it to run in a browser as well? I'd love that.

<comment><USER24> It runs in Chrome as an extension.

<comment><USER46> Thanks. I didn't really catch on to that until I looked at the github project.</comment></comment></comment>


Intuitive Means Familiar - <AUTHOR> http://mrwweb.com/intuitive-means-familiar/

<comment><USER2> Does it really matter how you label it after the fact. Affordance is all that matters. In my opinion familiarity isnt intuitiveness its a subset of it.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance)</comment>


Why youtube and guns should both require IQ tests - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBkbj_S3etY&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> As someone with I gather a high IQ and who's spent a lot of time around people with much higher IQs and who's been shooting since kindergarten, I'd say anyone with an IQ somewhere over 110 most definitely could use a safety test after some safety training.

However:

" _In sum, it is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty_ " (McDonald v. Chicago, page 31, <http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1521.pdf>)

And applying prior restraint to such rights is subject to serious scrutiny (ought to be "strict scrutiny", but that's TBD since both D.C. and Chicago's effective total handgun bans would fail _any_ level of scrutiny).</comment>