Gizmodo Goes Crazy, Reality Isn't What It Seems - <AUTHOR> http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2284164

<comment><USER2> > they seized domain pointers within their jurisdiction. A nearly-entirely- > symbolic exercise,

This guy obviously has no clue about the realities of web publishing. How are ordinary users supposed to find the sites without the domain pointer? For most users, taking the domain name is the same as shutting the site down.

<comment><USER3> seizing a domain is like seizing your cellphone # and saying it's ok because someone can still contact you using your email address(that forwards to your phone)...which they don't know

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And here I thought the entire outrage was due to the fact that the U.S. court system really shouldn't _have_ jurisdiction over generic domain names and therefore shouldn't be able to do this sort of thing, regardless of the U.S. law-compliant process they follow.

</comment><comment><USER5> He brings out a good point: there _was_ a warrant. While I'm not convinced that this is strictly... right, it does seem at least some level of due process was followed.

I'm not even sure there is a legal framework for shutting websites and internet infrastructure down.

It reminds me a little bit of Sterling's Hacker Crackdown - there is still an electronic frontier.

<comment><USER6> _They had court orders. That means they had due process of law_

I don't think court orders automatically mean justice was served. Accusation was levied, and execution was carried out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> On issues that deserve outrage, Denninger's rants are second to none. On issues that don't, he's good at explaining why. And he's got a solid track record of discerning the difference.

<comment><USER8> really? I've been following the guy for a while and think he is sometimes an idiot. For example, if there are court orders: where are they? Unless he saw the court orders, he just made them up. I could give you a bunch of things he was wrong about. He has a forum where be bans people who disagree with him. He was right about foreclosure gate and others such as the financial bailouts, but totally wrong on his deflation argument and wrong about gold. He was so wrong about gold that he deleted the precious metal area of his website from public viewing.

<comment><USER7> Regarding the court orders, ICE confirmed that today. I don't know how he got verification of that over the weekend, but he's good at digging around and finding stuff like that.

I'm not sure which 'deflation argument' you're referring to, but he has been arguing since 2006 that deflation would be the natural result of the financial crisis, even when Nouriel Roubini himself was arguing inflation (Roubini quickly reversed himself).

He was completely correct on that, it's deflation that the US Government and Federal Reserve are trying to prevent with massive stimuli and QE1/2. So far they've been successful, but at such a great cost there's no telling whether it's sustainable, or whether Bernanke can wind it down and gracefully exit eventually. Denninger argues no, b/c there's too much bad debt, and credit

Regarding gold, his fundamental thesis is that the data doesn't support the widely-held belief that gold is a good hedge for inflation or deflation, but it does appear to be a good hedge for geopolitical instability. He's posted data that disprove the former notion, which I'm not about to go try to dig up.

Gold has risen over the past ten years, but that time period was characterized by both currency instability, currency inflation, debt deflation, and geopolitical instability in the MidEast and somewhat N.Korea. Good luck trying to extract any causation out of that correlation. Till then, there's nothing to disprove his gold thesis.

He made parts of his website private to keep out the 'moonbats', conspiracy theorists, and 'collapse of the American Empire' cheerleaders, who tend to be most active in precious metals forums.

Whether he had an ulterior motive to hide being wrong about gold, I can't speak to that since I don't follow gold, or his gold forum very closely. Have any evidence of that accusation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What an absolutely useless headline.

</comment><comment><USER10> If there's no due process, it's not constitutional, period.

<comment><USER11> A warrant issued by a judge is due process.

Edit: I'm not saying it's fair, just that it's allowed by the constitution.

<comment><USER12> But the named domain's owners were not notified or provided the opportunity to even defend themselves! That's not due process.

<comment><USER13> Oddly enough, if police get a warrant to search your house and seize something that's considered evidence, they don't tell you in advance that they've done so or that they're coming to execute the warrant.

In other words, due process doesn't mean "nobody's allowed to do anything until every side has had its fill of argument".

<comment><USER12> Except that this case is completely different from that in every way? This isn't evidence -- this is a rendered judgement of sorts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Uh, what. The outrage, at least from where I'm sitting, is that these takedowns, if ICE's total cost is distributed accordingly, cost the American taxpayers millions of dollars. For something that as the author has pointed out, is largely futile.

<comment><USER15> No one has mentioned that in any of the articles I've read, or the comments on HN (though, again, I haven't read all of them). Citations, please?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They had _United States_ court orders. But DNS be subject to US court orders?

<comment><USER9> Things aren't generally subject to court orders, people (including the legal construct of "corporations") are subject to court orders. In particular, people in the US who run DNS systems are subject to court orders.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Assistive Devices for recently quadriplegic dad - <AUTHOR> In a most unfortunate incident, my dad slipped in our house and received a severe spinal cord injury (c5 to c7). This has rendered him quadriplegic. He is currently stable and is in in-house rehab. He was very active and was a part time professor. He also had a one or two consulting assignments.
He would like to use his laptop/ipad/phone. After some research I found some companies like TeclaShield that sell switches/ bluetooth interfaces and such.
Does anyone have any experience in this area? Your help or advice will be really appreciated. <comment><USER2> I'd recommend the two products:

1\. [http://www.quha.com/products-2/accessories/quha- pufo/](http://www.quha.com/products-2/accessories/quha-pufo/)

It's a bluetooth device that allows controlling the mouse cursor with body movement (head or finger etc) It's cheaper. Coupled with a free dwell clicking software, should work!

2\. Eye tracker - there are a lot of options, visit reddit.com/r/eyetracking that and reddit.com/r/ALS and ask them for advice. These devices let you control a PC with your eyes are especially designed for people who have ALS. The ones that work really well cost money, but most insurance companies cover them in full. Avoid Tobii, they are not reliable and are more marketing than anything. Mygaze,LC Technologies, Eyetech digital, smi vision. These are all companies you can trust. All should offer free trail periods and should have a rep who can come and visit your dad to do an evaluation. If they don't offer at minimum 2 week trail, they're not a trusted company. Secondly you can contact your local cities AT clinic they have donated equipment for situations like this.

I hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER3> I was passingly acquainted with two quadriplegics from my corporate job. They were both employees of the company.

Quadriplegic just means all four limbs are impaired. The degree of impairment can vary substantially. One of these men had use of his arms, but did not have full use of his hands. He drove himself to work, had a full time job, wife and kid. He broke his neck in a pool accident in his teens. He used a manual wheelchair. He was able to use a manual wheelchair because he had use of his arms. He chose it over an automatic wheelchair to get in regular exercise.

The other was substantially more impaired. He broke his neck in a riding accident later in life. He had been a brilliant surgeon. He used an automated wheelchair. I think he had partial use of one arm and maybe a couple of fingers, which allowed him to navigate a smartphone with that hand. He came in once a week for a few hours to review surgical reports for the company. When ordinary claims processors (like I was) could not figure out if the surgery was covered and their boss with more training couldn't either, we printed off the entire file and hand delivered the paper version to this man on Friday afternoon. I had one claim go to him and hand walked my papers to the meeting.

I also attended an educational talk given by the two of them. This is how I know how they each broke their neck and other details.

Since your father was a consultant, he may be able to return to doing consulting work at some point in the future. The specialized knowledge in his head does not stop being valuable just because of his physical limitations. I am mentioning this because new quadriplegics are often suicidal. They feel that life is simply over. It's not. He was a professor and consultant, like this former surgeon, his knowledge and expertise still has value. Even though the former surgeon could no longer work as a surgeon, his knowledge of surgery was valuable and he had a unique very part time job at a world class company.

Depending on the exact details of your father's limitations, he may also benefit from the use of ordinary things like smart phones with apps. There are also a lot of non-tech assistive devices, like chairs to help them shower and spoons that can be strapped to their hand so they can feed themselves if they have arm movement but limited hand control.

Best.

</comment><comment><USER4> I created a Chrome extension called Hands Free for Chrome which allows near- total control of the browser with your voice.

It occasionally has to be reset by hand if the voice recognition locks up, which is the only barrier. But I'm fairly certain it's the best option available for people in your father's situation.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hands-free-for- chr...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hands-free-for- chrome/ddgmnkioeodkdacpjblmihodjgmebnld)

<comment><USER5> I see it's got really great reviews, but the user count seems low given how useful it appears to be.

Is it just new, or maybe an unintentionally well kept secret?

<comment><USER4> Unintentionally well kept secret. I have no idea. There's a similar one with a weaker feature set (imo) which has 10k+ users-- there's obviously no shortage of demand. I haven't got a clue as to why it's so unsuccessful.

<comment><USER5> Hmm. I have no need for such a tool, but kudos for putting in the work on a free tool for people that do. And open source too...nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My father contracted Guillain-Barre - a fast oncoming neurological disorder that left him quadriplegic. I did a bunch of research a couple of years ago to help him out.

First, if your dad can still move his head you can use Apple's assistive tech to "tab" through the items on the screen with a turn one way, and "clicking" on an item by turning his face the other.

Second, MS Windows' voice control is actually really decent. You can browse, search, send emails, etc. all with your voice. It takes some training (both for the user and the machine) but my dad has gotten pretty quick with his.

Lastly, there's a bunch of eye trackers out there now, and you can use them for a lot of things. I setup CameraMouse ([http://www.cameramouse.org/](http://www.cameramouse.org/)) for when voice wasn't quite cutting it (or my dad got tired of talking.)

Unfortunately, there's no perfect solution, and all require time to adjust.

</comment><comment><USER7> Jouse3 $1500 mouth mouse/joystick seems tried & true. [http://www.compusult.net/assistive-technology/our-at- product...](http://www.compusult.net/assistive-technology/our-at- products/jouse3)

Source: [https://www.twitch.tv/nohandsken](https://www.twitch.tv/nohandsken) quadriplegic streamer who plays Diablo/Path of Exile, Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, etc. (I encourage Amazon Prime subscribers to give him ~$2.50 every 30 days via their free Twitch sub! [https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/2574674-how-...](https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/2574674-how- to-use-twitch-prime-free-subscriptions) )

slightly related/helpful discussion: [https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm sorry to hear that. That's very bad luck indeed.

I remember hearing about this project some time ago: [https://github.com/OptiKey/OptiKey](https://github.com/OptiKey/OptiKey)

It might be helpful as it's an open-source project and if extra features are needed you might be able to add them yourself if you are a programmer.

I mentally bookmarked it because I felt it would be a good "make the world a better place" type project to contribute to if I ever had some spare time.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's not a laptop but an Amazon Echo is excellent for Music, Audible books and Podcasts. Hard to beat how well the immediate voice recognition works. Home automation works but it's a try and see if it works for you type of situation. It's worth investigating for your needs. Also it's relatively inexpensive. I should add that home automation needs additional hardware and costs. But you can buy an on/off plug for a bit under $30.00.

</comment><comment><USER7> Please follow-up to report what works best for your father! So many of these Ask HN's have a great list of options, but no follow-up to report what worked best for your particular situation.

Thanks for bringing this request here to allow the community the chance to contribute!

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm sorry I don't, but my thoughts are with you and I think its great you are advocating for and supporting your father.

</comment><comment> house9-2 If he still has good movement of his neck:

\- Smartnav (if Mac you need to buy via 3rd party, but includes the software)

Fairly expensive, there are other variants that cost less/more, some gaming devices like TrackIr might work as well? Possible that health insurance would pay for these types of devices?

I personally use Smartnav about 50% of the time I am programming, along with Dragon/Voicecode due to RSI issues.

Smartnav + Dragon might be enough for using laptop/desktop, not so much for mobile devices. If he actually programs I would recommend voicecode.

All of these technologies have a massive learning curve.

You might want to checkout the voicecode forum and slack channel, I know there are some quadriplegic programmers in that community who would have better insight than I.

\- [http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/](http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/)

\- [http://voicecode.io/](http://voicecode.io/)

\- [http://discuss.voicecode.io/](http://discuss.voicecode.io/)

\- [https://voicecode.slack.com/](https://voicecode.slack.com/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I work for a company that makes robot arms for assistive purposes (Kinova) so I have some insight to share.

1st a voice setup with Alexa or similar can really help.

With regards to phone use, some of our users have an attachment to put the phone close to their head and use their nose to "click/select" (they can move their head).

Eye tracking technology is really impressive these days (can be as fast as using a mouse). I've recently demoed a system with a Tobii sensor ([https://www.tobii.com/](https://www.tobii.com/)) that was hooked up to a laptop, very impressive when combined with appropriate software (it handles scrolling, keyboard shortcuts, etc in a custom interface). I'm not sure with regards to phone/tablet use how well they integrate.

Ping me on Linkedin if you'd like to talk more.

</comment><comment><USER12> Dragon naturally speaking + Sennheiser ME-3 microphone should be at the top of your list

</comment><comment><USER13> A little while back, I had a quadriplegic man reach out to me and thank me for a skill I wrote for Alexa to control a Kodi box. It allowed him to watch what movies and shows he wanted without constantly asking for help.

[https://github.com/m0ngr31/kodi-alexa](https://github.com/m0ngr31/kodi-alexa)

I'm truly sorry about your dad. That's a scary situation for him to be thrust into.

</comment><comment><USER14> A company I used to work for did a project once, deploying a lot of home automation for someone with mobility issues. It's been a few years ago, and the tech has probably changed a lot since then, but they used OpenRemote[1] heavily as part of the project. It might be worth looking into.

[1]: [http://www.openremote.com/](http://www.openremote.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I work with assistive technology and many of the clients are quadraplegic. Because your dad can control his head accurately, the best computer access device for him is definately a head mouse. Eye tracking solutions are tiring to use and unaccurate.

I have tried most of the commercial solutions available and I think the best headmouse for your dad would be Zono mouse [http://www.quha.com/products-2/zono/](http://www.quha.com/products-2/zono/). It is very easy to use and is as accurate as normal table-top mouse.

</comment><comment><USER16> You might take a look at Neuroswitch from Control Bionics:

[http://www.controlbionics.com/about/](http://www.controlbionics.com/about/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Sorry to hear about your family's situation, but hopefully he's able to get back to work soon.

Tecla is great you should give it a try. Depending on his comfort and ability a head tracking mouse from Orin is pricey but works really well with a laptop/desktop setup. Dragon Naturally speaking is useful too.

Also he should make an appointment with a local assistive technology practitioner soon to get a run down of all the options, both low and high tech. You can find these ATP folks at most all rehab hospitals.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER18> You could take a look at tobii [1]. They make some interesting products where they combine eye tracking, speech analysis and other stuff to create user interfaces for people with specific needs.

[1] [https://www.tobiidynavox.com/en-US/tobii-dynavox-pceye- plus/](https://www.tobiidynavox.com/en-US/tobii-dynavox-pceye-plus/)

<comment><USER2> Tobii is horrible for people with disabilities. Their reps are driven by making money, their devices dry your eyes out because of the amount of IR they put on your eye balls. And they don't offer extended support. And forget trying to run these devices if you have glasses or any eye condition!

<comment><USER11> Sad to hear, I demoed a system with a Tobii sensor and it performed very well (even with my glasses). We were wondering about the effect of the constant IR blasts (are they continuous or pulsing?), thanks for the input.

<comment><USER2> Bring a old cell phone that's sensitive to IR light and place it in front of a tobii system. You'll see they're pulsing at a high frequency something like 30 lights at a >60 refresh rate per second, to the point you can actually see the light on the users face (using sensitive camera). Not all eye tracking companies put this much light on your eye's, but Tobii seems to be cutting corners - to make up for short coming in image processing. It's a brute force method to eye tracking.

The sensation you get after running a tobii is feeling like you've been up past midnight staring at a bright screen. Most people don't get that it's the eye tracker that makes you feel this way. Some of the other more respected companies take the amount of IR light placed on your eye balls seriously and try to drastically reduce it.

Talk to Tobii about it and they'll just bury it and say "there are no none health risks, or regulations about having that much IR light on your eye". Basically no one has set a threshold for how much IR light should be on a person's eye thus it isn't a problem "we should worry about".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This company develops software for the handicapped: [https://getaccessibleapps.com/](https://getaccessibleapps.com/)

I think they've created software that can bypass captchas and will work with you to develop software that can help your dad.

</comment><comment><USER20> Contact Barrie Ellis World expert on motion impairment assistive technology. email@example.com

</comment><comment> nikki-9696 Sorry to hear. You might find a lot more useful advice on Reddit, if you haven't already posted there.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is this robotics arm that helps gaining autonomy. There are options that allow the user to use his tongue, head or breath to control the arm. It interfaces easily to the wheelchair controls.

www.kinovarobotics.com

</comment><comment><USER22> Dasher might be something worth looking into:

[http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/](http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/)

</comment><comment><USER23> There is a startup in Brazil that promote DIY Assistive Projects: [https://www.meviro.org](https://www.meviro.org)

</comment><comment><USER24> Medgadget has lots of ideas for rehab and assisting devices out there. [http://medgadget.com](http://medgadget.com)

</comment><comment><USER25> There was a talk by a C4 paraplegic at WWDC this year that shows his setup.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps [https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/110/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/110/) ?

Convenience for You is Independence for Me

 _Why design apps with accessibility? Meet Todd Stabelfeldt, founder of C4 Consulting, who has lived with quadriplegia since the age of 8. Over his decades-long struggle for increased independence in both his personal and professional lives, Todd has become a noted expert in technologies for persons with disabilities, which he has found can offer not only a level of autonomy but also empowerment and dignity to the mobility impaired. Leading by example, Todd runs a successful business but his real passion lies elsewhere. Hear how apps designed well with accessibility in mind have changed his life as a husband, father and as owner of the "Quadthedral", his family 's HomeKit- enabled smart home._

\--

Unfortunately [http://asciiwwdc.com/](http://asciiwwdc.com/) hasn't been updated with a searchable transcript for 2017. I'm having trouble viewing the video in a browser on my PC; the download links are under "Resources".

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I worked with quads as a college grad student. I also worked with HIV patients in US Peace Corps. You really need to watch for sepsis. Watch out for catheter infections. [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-connected-catheter- by...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-connected-catheter-by-spinal- singularity#/) I would not allow any quad to use a catheter more than a short time. Spinal singularity will fail by increasing infections. A new DNA tech may change this. [https://nanoporetech.com/products/smidgion](https://nanoporetech.com/products/smidgion) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK5nNSwt3MA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK5nNSwt3MA) [https://www.cs.columbia.edu/2016/dna-sequencing-in- classroom...](https://www.cs.columbia.edu/2016/dna-sequencing-in-classroom/)

Sepsis now dominates the hospital ICU. It is what kills most AIDS patients too. Antibiotic resistance is driving costs. The ICU is now 40% of US hospital budgets. This is bankrupting state and federal budgets. This is why medicare, medicaid, obamacare are bankrupting US Govt (Fed and State) budgets. In 2013 health dominated state budgets.

State spending on health care now exceeds education spending. Look at NM's past budgets. [http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_spending_2...](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_spending_2016b20a)

 Today 1/4 of US VA and Indian Health patients are diabetic. US Defense Dept. funding must now compete with Medicare. Today 40% of hospital costs are for growing ICU's and chronic disease. 1/2 of US Medicare cost = chronic disease from diabetes.

NM ICU's are dominated by chronic disease. [http://www.amazon.com/Where-Night- Is-Day-Politics/dp/0801451...](http://www.amazon.com/Where-Night-Is-Day- Politics/dp/080145168X)

40% of US hospital budgets now pay ICU/chronic disease costs. This cost is going up annually. [http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/07/24/fortune- tra...](http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/07/24/fortune-trailblazers- icu-telemedicine.fortune)

Can MinION help pre ICU patients better control diet and sepsis infection. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-03/deadly- inf...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-03/deadly-infections- drive-billions-in-hospital-bills-to-medicare) A complete bacterial genome with MinION [http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v12/n8/abs/nmeth.3444.ht...](http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v12/n8/abs/nmeth.3444.html)

Minion can find septic bacteria fast. [https://genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1...](https://genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13073-016-0326-8)

firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Why younger people can't afford a house - gabor-meszaros http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/12/house-prices-money-cheap-debt-planning <comment><AUTHOR> I find intellectually dishonest the suggestion that not owning a house is somehow going to remove the ability to settle down and start a family. I don't own a house, and most likely never will, by the simple reasoning that I can either own a house 2 hours away from work and spend 1/6 of my weekday waking hours on public transit, or I can rent a great apartment 10 minutes from work and enjoy a vastly greater quality of life.

None of this stops me from living the family life. On the contrary, the shorter commute time arguably allows me to be a better father and husband than many of my coworkers, who travel such long distances to work that they can't afford to be home in time for dinner or their kids' bedtime.

Yes, they may have the big backyards and huge houses, but my family enjoys a Manhattan penthouse with a rooftop, located equidistantly from Central and Riverside parks, with easy access to everything the city has to offer.

The "American Dream" of owning a house at all costs - which also appears to be the British dream - would be just another distraction. It's unnecessary and, in my opinion, a waste of mindshare and money.

<comment><USER2> All a great and good till you do the math. In the UK you can own a house 2 hours away from work or you can rent a house 3 hours away from work. Rental prices in the UK are well above the rate needed to service a mortgage so if you can get a mortgage it's much cheaper. To give you an idea the 3 bedroom flat I live in has a mortgage repayment of around 800pounds a month but a rental income of 1700pounds a month.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, now that's the major difference from NYC. A mortgage payment for anything decent anywhere in Manhattan is far beyond my current means, yet I afford the rent easily enough. I wonder why the UK is so different? Are landlords simply profiteering off a bad situation?

<comment> UVB-76 I find the inverse to be strange, i.e. the notion that the rental value of a property should be less than the cost of a mortgage.

Not least because landlords incur overheads over and above those an owner- occupier does.

There is a large 'buy-to-let' industry in the UK, whereby millions have taken out mortgages to buy properties for the sole purpose of renting them out.

The rental income pays the mortgage, and usually provides some profit on top, all while the value of the property itself continues to appreciate.

<comment><USER3> _Not least because landlords incur overheads over and above those an owner- occupier does._

But isn't there also an economy of scales argument to be made. If you own dozens of buildings and hundreds of flats, you should be able to keep your pr. flat cost lower than someone who just bought one flat.

<comment> UVB-76 None of the overheads I'm thinking about lend themselves to economies of scale.

I'm talking about things like:

* Admin costs (contracting, etc.)

* New tenant costs (marketing, agency fees, reference checks, credit checks, inventory, etc.)

* Landlords' insurance

* Extra safety checks (e.g. annual gas safety checks)

* Cost of downtime between tenants

* Cost of rectifying wear and tear (cannot recover from tenants)

There's also a difference in terms of maintenance. If I'm an owner-occupier and something breaks, I can live with it for a while, shop around, get a few quotes, and get it fixed at my leisure.

As a landlord, if something goes wrong with one of my properties I have an obligation to repair it as soon as reasonably possible.

Then every now and then you get a tenant who completely trashes a property, causing damage far in excess of any deposit, and which you're unlikely to ever recover.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So many of my peers, many of whom are up to their neck in student loan debt and have mediocre paying jobs, seem hellbent on buying a house, usually due to the "rent is throwing your money away bro!" argument.

Did you know you don't need to buy a house? Like it's not legally required, even though everyone seems to think its the greatest thing you can possibly do with your money?

Some food for thought:

Why your house is a terrible investment - [http://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-house-is-a- terrib...](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-house-is-a-terrible- investment/)

Crunching the numbers of renting vs owning - [http://jlcollinsnh.com/2012/02/23/rent-v-owning-your-home- op...](http://jlcollinsnh.com/2012/02/23/rent-v-owning-your-home-opportunity- cost-and-running-some-numbers/)

<comment><USER5> On average it's still one of the best possible investments you can make with money, especially considering making a return on any sort of savings today isn't really a thing. These articles also neglect to mention that if you had bought property in a city like SF, Boston, or NYC a decade ago you wouldn't currently be worried about being priced out of the city by increasing rents (commute distance is a huge economic burden beyond the obvious housing costs).

It's still not something that's a "sure thing" or you can do hastily. It also takes more of your time than renting, so if you're trying to optimize "free time" then it's likely a bad investment in that regard.

There's no simple answer one way or another, but if you're trying to justify your inability to buy as a "good decision" you'd still be wrong more often than right. An increased market of affordable housing to purchase is better on the whole for wealth equality than controlling rents.

<comment><USER4> If you think it's one of the best possible investments, besides the article I poseted above I'd also recommend checking out - [http://affordanything.com/2015/11/24/is-renting-better- than-...](http://affordanything.com/2015/11/24/is-renting-better-than-buying- should-i-rent-or-buy/)

You mention cities that are booming. What about if you bought property in an area that got worse?

<comment><USER5> Well sure, that's an example of a bad investment. Renting is choosing to not invest. Zero risk, zero reward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am from Brazil.

We are having a similar problem for a long time now, and it is obvious how the situation also creates a huge amount of wealth inequality:

In São Paulo, several times in the last 15 years, rent managed to be more expensive than several first world cities (like Stockholm).

Housing prices are ludicrous, and the mayor office estimated they have a shortage of 200.000 homes right now, with 200.000 families (not 200.000 people!) living on the streets.

When I lived there, I spent 80% of my income in rent, I ended getting in debt after some hiccups with a contract, and got kicked out, I am still in debt to pay the rent, and I still have rents to pay too! (ie: defaulted rents).

The interesting thing is: THE BUILDING where I lived, not just the apartment, the ENTIRE BUILDING was owned by a single guy. I found out that guy owns SEVERAL buildings, and that he is NOT one of the city top10 richest, it is "normal" for the city "onepercenters" to own 50+ housing units, many of them own hundreds, or even thousands of housing units, many that are empty, because noone can afford the crazy rent, neither the crazy price to buy something.

One of the investors of my startup is a foreigner, and bought a apartment and a house in Brazil, he later told me he was surprised, by how much lucrative it was, the apartment value DOUBLED in 1 year.

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of my previous physician. That person owned literally all the housing units on the same street where she set up shop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article makes some good points. Primarily that there's too much money floating around being poorly used (ie, in the hands of the superrich who's primary motivation is to generate high returns for themselves).

The solution is not cheaper homes or higher interest rates, but higher wages and less student debt. The easiest way to do that (in the US) is to raise taxes (particularly capital gains, but also upper-bracket income and corporate taxes) to subsidize low-price higher education, fund infrastructure projects (national power grid, offshore wind and tide power generation, a real high- speed rail network, local transit, local utility upgrades (water and sewer systems are dangerously decrepit throughout the country, and we ought to be laying fiber to every home in the US), research into battery technology, diabetes and cancer prevention and treatment advances) that will pay decades of massive benefits to rich and poor alike, and to raise the minimum wage, which will generate inflationary pressure on other wages and prices in general.

Further the Fed needs to let inflation rates balance out by running at 4-8% for a few years. We've had a sustained period of outrageously low inflation, which means that mortgages and student debt are far heavier burdens today than they were for previous generations, because inflation reduces the effective principal.

We have plenty of tools to address this problem, but no political will to even try.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Because they are lazy and feckless", if you listen to anyone over 40.

Younger people can't afford a house because empathy is dead, and property in the UK is no longer a thing in which you live, it's an investment instrument - and unfortunately as it's a rather profitable investment instrument large and wealthy entities engage with said investments, pushing smaller investors (i.e. human beings who wish to own the roof over their head) out of the market.

We've successfully gone back to landed aristocracy.

<comment><USER10> Don't generalize, I'm over 40 and don't agree with that statement.

<comment><USER9> Sure, sorry, "anyone" isn't quite right - but this does seem to hold true for a significant majority. If I had a penny for every time I get a "when I was your age" I'd be able to live in a house made of them!

<comment><USER10> No worries, when I was your age I complained about the older crowd as well when they did something I didn't like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> design-of-homes A major factor in the rise of property prices in the UK is the enormous growth of the buy-to-let market. It's not the sole factor affecting property prices, but a substantial one, particularly in London.

Incredibly, buy-to-let landlords have enjoyed better tax advantages than first-time buyers. Some of those tax advantages have only recently been curtailed by the current government, but it's too little, too late.

I wrote a blog post about the damaging effects of buy-to-let in 2009. That's six years ago, and hardly anything has changed. It's immensely depressing:

[http://designofhomes.co.uk/016-damaging-effects-of-buy-to- le...](http://designofhomes.co.uk/016-damaging-effects-of-buy-to-let.html)

<comment><USER11> Actually growth of BTL is not the reason for increasing house prices - although it is a result of the actual cause - low interest rates - which has meant that both buy-to-live and buy-to-let have been able to borrow ever great sums for the same monthly cost as mortgage rates have come down - from 5% or 6% to 1% over the last 5 - 10 years.

<comment><USER12> I am sure it a combination of factors. Some will say immigration is the cause. Its not the only cause, but it will affect the market.

I have to agree that 'emergency' low interest rates are propping the market up since it was ready to crash in 2007. BTL landlords benefit from low interest rates, so again that is a factor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The solution to the housing crisis is lower prices ... many people's wealth > is dependent on the value of their home

This 30-minute video [1] describes the factors in the economy in simple terms. I understand fractional reserve 'n all that but the interesting part I learned was about the long/short term debt cycles. If we're entering a transition on the long term debt cycle, it would be marked by unrest/wars.

[1] [http://www.economicprinciples.org/](http://www.economicprinciples.org/)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for sharing, this is a great video. It packs a lot.

What has happened in the last 8 years is that central banks have attempted to stimulate asset prices at all costs. Real deleveraging is painful and there is no way around it. It has to happen.

Central banks have short circuited the natural process and cut the deleveraging cycle early. In doing so, it has caused the economy to limp on in a heavily burdened, leveraged state without real growth. This is why we still have near zero interest rates, and why Europe and Japan are still on negative rates -- LOWER than the GFC!

Take a look at this chart of mortgage debt: [https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MDOAH](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MDOAH)

You can see that the natural deleveraging cycle has been short circuited by insane injections of money. There is still too much debt to income, and deleveraging is going to happen again.

<comment><USER13> Does it make sense to normalize that graph against population or productivity growth (maybe a larger economy can support a larger debt)? Even still I doubt growth since 1950 has anywhere near the slope of that graph.

<comment><USER14> It absolutely does make sense to adjust for real GDP, but even so you can see the deleveraging process was short circuited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Between 1997 and 2007 the housing stock grew by 10%, but the population only grew by 5%".

I find this hard to believe, the town I live in has not grown by 10% in a decade.

"The Bank of England says inflation is 0.3%. Really? With house prices up by 10% last year?"

I think that inflation rate specifically excludes housing costs and always has done.

IMO it is supply and demand, the millions of new East Europeans moving to the UK and caused a spike in the population and they have to live some where, thus pushing prices up, this combined with buy-to-let means there are fewer places up for sale as money can be made on renting especially with interest rates low and mortgages available.

rent prices are set to screw the maximum out of tenants, and have nothing to do with the landlord's costs, this means that tenants find it harder to save deposits.

I'm glad I bought in 2008.

<comment><USER7> On average housing prices in germany are growing slower than inflation but in cities they are growing at a rapid pace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The situation is fucked and people are starting to get angry.

Over the mid\long term this bodes badly for the people benefitting.

Cynically the push for more state control of peoples privacy looks a lot like they are planning for civil unrest.

If you want to see why secure comms are vital look up Operation Vula.

Put another way and I forget who said it "there is nothing more dangerous than a man who has nothing to lose", you can't dispossess an entire generation and not expect blow back.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSOTVfNe54A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSOTVfNe54A)

[1] [https://youtu.be/Q4hIvL8vtCw?t=21s](https://youtu.be/Q4hIvL8vtCw?t=21s) [Good fast overview, rest of the talk is interesting as well]

<comment><USER17> [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/12/operation_vul...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/12/operation_vula.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a great article to see in the mainstream press and something that needs to be discussed.

When it comes to UK housing most people tend to blame immigration / lack of building. Which certainly haven't made the situation any better. They both can distort the supply / demand equation.

The main thing though that effects the demand however tends to be looser monetary policy. This makes more people have more money chasing the same properties. It's an absurd situation and all we have done is essentially devalue money in terms of property. We are no richer.

An even more interesting point to the UK market is places like Scotland. Scotland's population actually dipped from the 80s into the 90s, and is only just above where it was in the 80s now... and yet in that time real property values have doubled and above in most places.

During this time they never stopped building...

We should all be angry at monetary policy of the last decade or so.

</comment><comment><USER19> Several trends responsible for this.

Loose monetary policy - many asset prices have risen - stock markets, property prices in major cities.

In the case of London, it's seen as a safe haven so foreign investors park their money in property here, banks willing to lend large mortgages, influx of people moving London.. And not enough new housing (aside from high end property development in Central London, which several hedge funds are now shorting incidentally).

Other factors will change but the population growth trend isn't going to slow down any time soon in London. I think remote work could be incentivised on a larger scale so people can choose where to work from.

</comment><comment><USER20> The article seems to suggest that low interest rates are the cause of high house prices: it argues that house price inflation is out-of-control, but could be brought under control with higher rates.

This would certainly deter buy-to-let landlords. But, given that the world generally is doing quantitative-easing and 0% rates or lower, this would be a very contrary position for the UK to adopt.

What would be the implications of that policy? I can't believe it hasn't already be considered. So why has it been dismissed?

<comment><USER21> Indeed. Interest rates affect (a) asset prices and (b) business investment.

Low rates are supposed to affect the economy to increase inflation through (b): businesses buying inventory, building factories, developing new products, etc. This "transmission mechanism" is now broken because there is a shortage of suitable demand. Businesses do not want to borrow to expand because there is no good prospect of a return on the expansion. So we can't push on that rope.

Low rates caused a property boom which resulted in a _temporary_ economic boost to several European countries (especially Spain and Ireland): the cheap money ended up in the pockets of construction workers, who spent it.

We need some means of diverting the cheap money from (a) to (b). Possibly a tax on leverage, if that's feasible.

In the short term, the UK should get a proper property tax and apply punitive rates to property owned by non-EU individuals or companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Ignoring land prices for the moment, houses do not cost a lot of money to > build – a quick search online shows you can buy the materials for a three- > bed timber-framed house for less than £30,000; in China a 3D printer can > build a basic home for less than £3,000 – and the building cost of the > houses we already have has long since been paid.

Wait...what?

Ignore the cost of land, ignore the cost of labor and houses sure are cheap to build!

<comment><USER23> I feel it's a rather salient point that it's the land that is expensive, not the house.

<comment><USER22> Is that what the author intended to convey?

I also question the quality of materials you're getting for that price, as well as the architecture of the house. In the same area, I've seen 4000 sq ft. houses sell for $150,000 and 4000 sq ft. houses sell for over a million in the same area. All materials and building plans are not equal, so it's still more than just land.

I also wonder how much house flipping (or people having to update their own house before selling) has pushed prices up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What is happening in the UK today is what happened in Spain 10 years ago, or what happened in Japan before Spain: A bubble created by easy money.

In Spain it was money coming from France, UK, and Germany. In UK it is money coming from Chinese and central banks, and people worrying about the stock market.

The big problem in developed countries is that they are old democracies. For the first time, most of the population of a country is not young, but old.

In the past, with pyramids of population, the younger population decided for their country, now it it old people who is majority.

This means young people could be sacrificed without consequences: taxes are being raised on the young and working populations to support elderly pensions. House prices are artificially sustained so old people does not lose their investments. Working benefits are cut on newcomers to support veterans.

</comment><comment><USER25> Houses are many baby boomers' retirement savings. Governments are stuck because if they pop the bubble to make housing more affordable, they'll be pissing off a lot of people about to retire who are counting on the value of their house.

</comment><comment><USER26> > The standard solution is: "we need to build more"

One thing that really put me off buying a new home in the UK is how small they are. The total floor area of this two bedroom house is 50m2 (540 sq. feet) for £188,000. It's in a new development on greenfield land, so it's not like space was limited.

[http://www.zoopla.co.uk/new- homes/details/39983656#VvUd83HXP...](http://www.zoopla.co.uk/new- homes/details/39983656#VvUd83HXPWvl3197.97)

<comment><USER27> It's because planning regulations are such a pain in the arse. When they get the initial planning outline for a plot of land, that is a huge multi-year hurdle they've overcome. It can cost hundreds of thousands, even millions, just to get to that point. So naturally they then decide to cram as many houses as possible onto the plot.

There are also really annoying regulations about having to give a certain percentage of the houses to the council (on the cheap), if the total build is more than about 12-13 houses. So when you're choosing between 200 or 300 houses on the plot, why would you want to give away some really nice houses at cost, when you could just build a ton of small terraces?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Blaming cheap money is wrong and upside down basic macro.

Lowering property prices by raising interest rates, makes it more difficult to afford houses and implies killing the economy and putting people out of work. Home prices usually end up going down only because people are made not to be able to afford them. This is incredibly destructive and it only allows more people to live in the same area when they are forced to move in with their parents.

I used to think rising house prices were a bad situation for us millennials but now I believe this to be a best case scenario.

It is impossible to keep adding people to the same space while giving everybody much room for their money. The problem is trying to cram a generation of millennials into the same area as a wealthy cohort of boomers and rich immigrants predictably makes home prices go up.

Increasing supply or nudging the new generation to go in areas with more potential for spacial growth not only allows the new community to be built to the image of its own people but building and growing the infrastructure of a new neighborhood or revitalizing a dying town creates jobs for the people that go there.

The best thing governments could do to help with this situation would be to encourage some of the institutions and jobs relevant to new generations to move out of overpriced, overcrowded centers. They could foster jobs creation in centers with more low cost space and less chance of spacial overload. They could maybe move some public jobs there to help jump start the migration. This would also put some downward pressure on the prices in overcrowded places until we reach some kind of equilibrium.

I say stop trying to cram everyone in the same volume. Let the older rich generation keep the expensive quarters they've spent their life building and allow new generations to create our own communities, in our own space, from choices guided guided our own tastes.

<comment><USER29> I don't think you are correct. Lets take Toronto as an example. This city built condo projects by the dozens. The GTA (greater toronto area) is so sprawled out, I recall a statistic that it was 1/4 the size of England. The transportation infrastructure cannot take it ... major roads like the DVP and 401 are always clogged. Farmland in some of the far away areas is being converted to houses. The problem here is the price of land is so highly inflated, you now have no choice but to pay a million buckeros for a modest detached house. Condos in areas near the subway and restaurants are also priced stupid ... one of the areas we considered was priced at $680 a square foot (in an area called North York). The problem is cheap, free money. People who got in on it early own 2-3 condos.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. I lived in Canada like 5 months or so with some friends. The country is so big that we used private airplanes to move around, which was very normal there.

The prices on Toronto smells Bubble so much that feels dangerous to be near that when it does pop.

<comment><USER28> >The prices on Toronto smells Bubble so much that feels dangerous to be near that when it does pop.

There may be a bubble, but you could also argue from basic supply and demand that until prices cause people to stay away from there and build new communities in less dense regions, they are still not high enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > But – and here is the great sleight of hand – the Bank has seen fit not to > include house prices in its measures of inflation. So, throughout the 90s > and 00s, they could then "prove" inflation was low or moderate and interest > rates meandered lower.

Aren't rents included in the CPI? I would be surprised if they weren't since it's a pretty huge part of most people's monthly expenses.

Then it would either mean that the rents rose along with the house prices (in which case this effect is included in the inflation figures) or that the actual housing costs didn't increase -- it's just less profitable to buy and more to rent.

<comment><USER31> You are correct, per according to Consumer Price Indices: a brief guide by the Office for National Statistics (directly indexed pdf, so google the name to find), here are some selected examples of UK CPI factors and their weights.

Class: Weight

Food: 93

Alcoholic beverages: 20

Clothing: 59

Actual rentals for housing: 62

Electricity, gas and other fuels: 48

Purchase of vehicles: 38

Other recreational items, gardens and pets: 32

Education: 21

Restaurants and cafes: 88

These weights feel intuitively off to me, but I imagine costs like rent and education look low because only a subset of the population is paying for them, even if they are huge cost to members that cohort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think young people are not buying homes not from some money issue, but rather a desire to not be tied to a single location. They want freedom of movement, and I think a general desire to live in more urban/cosmopolitan neighborhoods. Places where houses cost more than most people of any age group can afford.

As for me for those who care: I'm 33 and bought my first home last year. I did so not to start a family, but because I was finally able to get myself out from under the thumb of crappy apartment corporations, their always-increasing rents, rules, and the general nature of living with people all around me.

</comment><comment><USER33> There is something very simple that the government could do, that would instantly transform the housing market (and it will never happen). The government should stop securing >10 year mortgages. Banks wouldn't make these loans if they weren't backed by the feds. And they inflate property prices. The government has been slowly increasing the term length of mortgages that they will securitize, pumping value in to homes, enabling people to lend against that increased "equity". If the government stopped securing these loans, residential land would get a lot cheaper.

<comment><USER34> The reason it would never happen is that, at least in the US, the government has been in the business of trying to make owning a house accessible to people who probably can't actually afford it. As much as people like to cast aspersions on "the banks" for the housing bubble, the government deserves a lot of blame as well for actively promoting the ideas that everyone should be able to own their own home.

If they were to do what you propose, that would lead to some uncomfortable circumstances: the only people who can afford a home are the people who come from the middle class and up, which might not represent minorities in an appropriate way. And in such a case this does not bode well for politicians who are looking for votes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> In China, most young professionals end up buying apartments in these wonderful apartment complex communities with beautiful gardens and plenty of shared outdoor space. You don't see a lot of home ownership. So there is another way of living that's good for families :)

</comment><comment><USER36> One thing I rarely see mentioned is that, with increasing uncertainty around employment, and the likelyhood that I might be forced to move increasing, the real interest rate on home purchases is much higher than the headline rate.

I have read that the average american moves every five years. Assuming they are on a 30 year loan of $100,000 at, say, 3%, they have paid $14,202.61 interest on $11,093.64 of principal, for an effective interest rate of 120%. 120%, and that's at 3%!

This is due to the fact that mortgages are structured as constant payments, which means early on they are mostly interest and only later is the principal being paid down. If someone moves and rolls right into another 30 year loan, they start the process all over again.

Our financial system appears to be an elaborate mechanism for moving people into debt slavery. If you read "n The Law of Civilization and Decay" you can see the same dynamics at work in the late Roman empire.

<comment><USER37> Your calculations don't make sense. You're calculating interest on the % of principal paid off, instead of the total principal.

Also, if you move to another house, there's nothing to say you have to get another 30 year loan. You could get a 20 year loan instead. You could also refinance your house with a new 30-year loan after 10 years.

<comment><USER36> You can shorten the duration of loans, which is a great idea, but typically only in big jumps: 15 or 10 year loans. You can also pay down the loan faster or put up bigger down payments. Again, great stuff.

However, many people don't do this and end up spending a lifetime in the early parts of a fixed-payment amortization schedule, where the realized interest rates are very, very high.

<comment><USER38> The number you use for principle doesn't make any sense. People are buying housing with a mortgage, not just the house (that is, living in a house for 5 years is worth more than $0).

It's very true that mortgages are expensive and it's unfortunate that we have priced our housing market to 30 years of payments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> [http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2016/04/minimalism-brought- free...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2016/04/minimalism-brought-freedom-joy/)

</comment><comment><USER40> this is interesting, a house in sweden, even rural sweden runs at the cheapest just shy of 1mil sek. that is to say, the lower end bracket of the middle class can forget about owning a house.</comment>


Grand Rapids has become a midwestern economic star generating industrial jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.city-journal.org/html/manufacturing-comeback-15833.html <comment><USER2> I currently work in GR as a software developer so if you want the inside scoop contact me.

I will say Grand Rapids currently has some issues around software developers that are associated with our growing pains. Because of the rust belt depression of wages, we still haven't caught up. Wages for software developers here lag by about 20 percent. Most employers are used to paying a much lower wage than I would expect elsewhere. Senior developers might make 80-90K and juniors can expect to be making 40-50K. If you are an ineffective negotiator you might be lower. Many of my contemporaries have chosen to get remote jobs with the usual suspects. Zapier, Bitbucket, Sourceforge, Slack and others all have local people.

That said, this is a wonderful town that is changing all the time. The cost of living is low, though our real estate market is out of control and has been for a couple years. The developers here tend to have a strong sense of community and we generally support one another rather than tear each other down. We have some great local developers.

If you would like the low down on our growing town or are interest in moving, setting up a remote shop or building a company in our town let me know. I'd be happy to help you or get you in contact with those that can. (see profile)

<comment><USER3> Not looking to move, but just out of curiousity, how would you say developer salary / cost of living compares, to, say San Francisco? No surprise that both will be a lot lower in Grand Rapids, but I'm wondering how the ratio looks.

<comment><USER4> Numbeo is a great site for cost of living comparison. Here's SF versus Grand Rapids[0]. To sum, if your takehome is $7800 in SF, you can live a similar lifestyle on $3700 in Grand Rapids.

So, about half the cost of living.

[0] [https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=United+States&city1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&city2=Grand+Rapids%2C+MI&tracking=getDispatchComparison)

<comment><USER5> That of course depends on what you're going for. The 'lifestyle' comparison only takes into account basic goods. It doesn't take into everything else that actually affects your personal quality of life (cities vs more rural life each have vastly different benefits).

<comment><USER6> Not only that, but many things have a constant price: international air tickets, cars, and computers don't vary in cost much between GR and SF (some are even more expensive in the lower cost place).

<comment><USER5> > international air tickets

Air tickets are significantly cheaper in NY than ruralish areas in my experience

<comment><USER6> Yes, I'm sure tickets to SFO to Asia are often cheaper than from Grand Rapids or even Detroit.

<comment><USER5> Arbitrary example: GRR -> Copenhagen roundtrip is ~$1,100 USD. From NYC or SF I can do that for ~$400-$500. Pretty much anywhere else I could pick has a similar differential.

That's a massive cost difference, especially when you're looking at 2-4 person vacations. That's a problem in pretty much every rural area (flying out of Ithaca was expensive as heck). I'm able to travel way more as a result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I lived in a rust belt city in for many years, and in recent years have been witnessing a slew of "rust-belt renaissance" articles pop up every now and then about how things are turning around in deindustrialized cities (Pittsburgh is often cited as a shining example of a city that has seen a turnaround).

These articles typically state something along the lines of the low COL (cost- of-living) luring young people back from coastal cities. Some even overstate their case quite a bit by projecting they'll be the next Silicon Valley or startup hub. I wonder how folks here feel about such articles?

I can't help but notice there's some element of boosterism that misses a something fundamental. To be sure, it makes people who live in rust belt cities feel better about themselves (I was one of those people), but it doesn't seem to really move the needle in attracting the very ambitious to these places. In my observation, the truly ambitious are insensitive to cost- of-living arguments.

Paul Graham wrote an article entitled "Cities and Ambition" [1] which speaks to this. It tracks with my observation that people at the top of their games tend to cluster, and are willing to suffer discomfort to live among their peers.

\---

Some quotes:

"How much does it matter what message a city sends? Empirically, the answer seems to be: a lot. You might think that if you had enough strength of mind to do great things, you'd be able to transcend your environment. Where you live should make at most a couple percent difference. But if you look at the historical evidence, it seems to matter more than that. Most people who did great things were clumped together in a few places where that sort of thing was done at the time."

"No matter how determined you are, it's hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do."

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html)

<comment><USER8> I think these articles speak with the ambition of these cities themselves despite the loss of their industrial base; to my mind this ambitiousness _is_ correlated with boosterism. And it does makes people feel good, and it might work, too, at supporting ambition. Just like how folks in NYC and SF often speak highly (as well as ill) of their homes. It feels good!

I'm not sure of how some cities are more expensive correlates with overall ambition so much as it does class. People from all classes can be very ambitious even if they're unequal in wealth.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think you're right -- positivity does create virtuous cycles.

On a related note, I suspect cities primarily relying on cost-of-living arguments to attract people may actually be subtly signalling the reverse of what ambitious people are drawn to. A city's primary signal should be the vibrancy of the place, not the low cost of living.

In my old rust belt city, many were proud of the fact that folks who left for New York City were coming back because we offered a low cost of living. But the people returning were also those who had "given up" on their ambitions... whose dreams were broken by NYC. I realize this is a bit of an unfair generalization, because it's not universally true (some ambitious chefs who returned -- and they are very good -- were those who trained in NYC but simply found NY's restaurant economics too oppressive). But supposing we were subtly attracting folks who had "given up"... in large enough numbers, they are likely to set a certain cultural tone for the city. Great cities are not built on low cost-of-living is all I'm saying.

Side: as a historical example, consider Canada vs U.S. -- Canadians are generally a more risk-averse people than Americans, and it's partly because the United Empire Loyalists were American loyalists who chose the safer route of siding with the British, whereas U.S. Americans forged their own path. The Loyalists set the tone for much of the country.

As to your second point, cities with ambition tend to be expensive because people want to live in them, often in spite of the expense. However, the reverse is not true -- just because a city is expensive doesn't mean it attracts ambition. Nantucket's pretty expensive but it's not brimming with ambition. Not sure about expensive cities correlating with class... New York is very expensive, but still manages to attract ambitious working class people who are trying to make it there.

<comment><USER9> _On a related note, I suspect cities primarily relying on cost-of-living arguments to attract people may actually be subtly signalling the reverse of what ambitious people are drawn to. A city 's primary signal should be the vibrancy of the place, not the low cost of living._

Yes. What makes me unlikely to return to Michigan long-term, as much as I liked where I lived, is the limited career options I would have there. I am apparently willing to put up with a rather high cost of living to work on what I find interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> After 5 years, I had to leave there. Too much religion. Too much smug mediocrity. Too much fawning over the DeVos's & Meijers.

<comment><USER11> Meijers is really the HEB of that area. I couldn't imagine living out there long term as a non-religious, non-straight person.

<comment><USER12> I don't know if that can be generalised. I lived in GR and went to Grand Valley. I saw few churches with rainbow flag raised on them. Grand Valley is also very big on protecting LGBTQ. Had gay friends knew gay bars. For an immigrant like me, GR has been nothing but warm and nice. Sorry to hear about your experience.

<comment><USER10> After you get asked for the umpteenth time what church you go to, it's easy to get outed as the Company Heathen.

After not going to the company picnic over the course of few years (BBQ) it's easy to get outed as the Company Vegetarian.

And then, because it is Grand Rapids, and the corporate world is very different from the local public university, you pretty much get shunned. They won't make your life completely miserable, but you will feel the affects of being an permanent outsider.

YMMV, but I was batting 2 for 2 and have stories from others. I'm sure there are some good employers around.

<comment><USER13> > After you get asked for the umpteenth time what church you go to, it's easy > to get outed as the Company Heathen.

Generally, I tell people to just say "I go to Fountain Street Church". Even if you don't know what that is, even if you've never set foot in the place, just say those words anyway. It's essentially a community shared codephrase that means "you aren't going to harass anyone about their religious beliefs".

It lets the strict Christians sleep at night (because you 'go to church'), but it usually prevents any follow-up questions (because it's somewhat well known as the 'overly-accepting' church, and they usually won't want to get into orthodoxy specifics).

Meanwhile, that same phrase lets most of the non-religious locals know that, regardless of whatever your actual beliefs are/aren't, you are a polite person who doesn't want to face religious discrimination and is claiming not to do so to others.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, it's not right to make people jump through these silly hoops. But that's sort of how the game is played in Grand Rapids.

<comment><USER11> Considering its been years since I've talked to anyone about church, let alone heard this kind of question asked, this would be a major culture shock. I don't think I'm the only person out on the West Coast who hasn't heard questions of that genre in years though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I keep waiting for the Silicon Valley/New York/Boston/Seattle/etc. tech hotspot bubble to pop, and companies look to areas of the country with low cost of living, short commutes to work, etc.

I will probably have a long wait! The problem as I see it is that companies need to be run with a 'remote first' culture, where people in outlying offices are not second class citizens.

I recently was in NYC working for a few days, and while the environment is a lot of fun, many people who work there have very long commutes. When I worked as a contractor at Google in Mountain View, I came into the office at 6am to beat the traffic. The cost of living in tech centers is awful compared to non- east/west coast areas.

It seems like there is not much middle ground: either have everyone in one or a few urban areas or have a distributed culture. Currently the business model of concentrating workers in high cost areas is winning over distributed teams.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's very odd that this article goes out of its way to paint the Amway billionaires as "good" and not "extractive." Everyone I know from the area has horror stories about friends or family members that got sucked into Amway's cultish pyramid scheme and had their lives destroyed.

They're a big employer in the region, so locals do tend to "look the other way." But this is far too generous a portrayal of the families/company that have created decades of devastation in the wake of its scam.

<comment><USER16> City Journal is run by the Manhattan Institute.

<comment><USER15> Well, that explains it! Bought and paid for...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Kalamazoo isn't doing bad these days, either. As someone who grew up in Michigan (Saginaw), I would love to move to either, but IT jobs I'm qualified for seem to be rather thin on the ground.

<comment><USER18> Saginaw is having issues, but there are a few consulting firms around the area. Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Lansing though are having strong comebacks. As someone from Standish, I look forward to the day that the MBS area is more than just Dow.

<comment><USER19> One of the interesting things about MBS is that there's a huge amount of under-employed or under-utilized talent that's basically (1) the "trailing spouse" problem (one half of a couple has a Dow job, the other doesn't) plus (2) Dow employees that have been lost in the shuffle and aren't in roles that are a good match. I never quite came up with the right idea to take advantage of the local talent pool... a startup incubator is a maybe. If Dow were the smart and forward-looking, they would encourage a local startup community, but that's not the pattern of decision-making that happens at Dow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I was younger Grand Rapids was seen as a dull place. Downtown closed at 5 pm and there wasn't much fun to be had for a young adult.

While the area is still pretty conservative that has changed mightily in the last forty years. The city now has a lively downtown and all those breweries have made the place a magnet for young people from the surrounding areas.

The 'lake effect' does mean they get a lot more snow than the eastern part of the state.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake- effect_snow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow)

<comment><USER21> Aside from dining out, what fun is there to be had for young adults anywhere?

I mean, anywhere with a plentiful supply of other young adults gives you approximately equal opportunity to socialize, right?

<comment><USER7> > Aside from dining out, what fun is there to be had for young adults > anywhere?

As someone who used to live in the rust belt, I found my social life to be vastly improved after moving to Chicago.

It's true you can be lonely in a big city, but the same is true in a small town. The difference is that in a big city, significantly more options exist if you are willing to step out.

After moving to a big city, I was able to connect with more people of like- mind. The diversity of people I meet now is an order of magnitude greater. The Meetup groups are significantly better (I can go to a technical meetup and talk shop with people at my level). If I wanted to hang out with friends, the scope of activities possible are also much wider. If I wanted to learn a skill, take language classes, take evening classes at a world-renowned university, etc., I can and have -- and have met interesting people through these activities. If I wanted to go on a trip with friends, flights are much cheaper out of a hub city. Job opportunities are also much more abundant -- if I decided to change jobs tomorrow, I could do that without moving away.

The intellectual and cultural climate in a dynamic, thriving city is vastly different from that of a single-industry town.

It's not just dining out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm from there. Nice enough city...don't know if I would move back.

<comment><USER6> I used to live in Toledo as a kid and we went up to Grand Rapids one time for a trip. I remember the forests surrounding the city were really nice, and of course there was a lake nearby with waves big enough to body surf on. I can't really say anything about the city, but that part of the Michigan has a lot to offer.

<comment><USER23> Currently living in Ann Arbor. As a software engineer it's vibrant and full of startups to join. Our javascript meetup usually has somewhere around 50-100 people every event.

Not to mention it's a small town with a lot of bigger city amenities, close proximity to Detroit, and with it being a college town the average IQ is pretty high.

<comment><USER6> The only thing I remember about Ann Arbor is my mom visiting a hospital there for some reason. It seemed like a small quaint town, definitely not as bad as Monroe.

<comment><USER24> calling Ann Arbor a small quaint town comparing it favorably to Monroe is just a misunderstanding.

Monroe has like a sixth the population in the city limits and still less than half the size comparing the two metro regions. Ann Arbor is in a different class than Monroe. Monroe is a small town. Ann Arbor is a medium-small city (over 100,000 in city, over 300,000 in metro area).

Ann Arbor is centered around the University of Michigan, consistently ranked the #2 public school in the country, just behind UC Berkley. It has around 45,000 students. And yet Ann Arbor is big enough that students are still a minority of the population.

The UofM hospital is generally ranked one of the top 10 in the country, so it's not surprising for someone to go their for some special visit.

But sure, it's small and quaint compared to any real big city.

<comment><USER25> Expanding on your comment, I think its worth mentioning Barracuda, Nokia, Ford Labs, and Expedia are in Ann Arbor. Google has an office there, too.

<comment><USER24> Ann Arbor has a real tech scene for sure, and Google's office there is significant. But whatever presence they have, Nokia and Expedia are not based in Ann Arbor (as someone might infer from your post)

<comment><USER6> I live in downtown Bellevue and I'm pretty sure the Expedia building down the street is its headquarters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Michigan winters may force you to stay indoors during winter storms. Lots of great code is written in winter for this reason.</comment>


How the Web is opening up our democracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.cjr.org/feature/a_see-through_society.php

<comment><USER2> The article describes some interesting trends: more data becoming available from the various levels of government (although with some resistance), monitoring and blogging by individuals and bloggers, web sites appearing that allow citizens to track and respond to the actions of their governments, and anecdotes that illustrate this in action. And he didn't even discuss the impact of grassroots fund raising to counteract the influence of big contributors.

My take is that these are indications that there will be a fundamental transformation of how our democracy works. Transparency will be forced on the politicians.

It looks like there will be lots of opportunity for HN types to help the process along, both as entrepreneurs and volunteers. How about Open (Source) Democracy.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Meanwhile, we're poised for a revolution in participation, not just in consumption, thanks to the Web. People talk, share, and talk back online. According to yet another study by Pew, this one in December 2007, one in five U.S. adults who use the Internet reported sharing something online that they created themselves; one in three say they've posted a comment or rated something online."

It's an interesting article about a new model of political participation.</comment>


Communicating Sequential Processes (1978) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~crary/819-f09/Hoare78.pdf <comment><USER2> CSP provided the basis for the occam programming language designed for the Transputers:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam_\(programming_language\))

Edit: The CS course I did in the 1980s had a Concurrent Programming course that covered CSP and another one of my favourites: Petri Nets

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

Edit2: Go also has concurrency features influenced by CSP:

[https://golang.org/doc/faq#csp](https://golang.org/doc/faq#csp)

<comment><USER3> I like petri nets so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever CSP comes around on Hacker News, I feel the need to suggest people look a bit into Milner's CCS as well.

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

The end goals of both languages are mostly the same, but while CSP aims at being a "powerful" language, CCS strives for simplicity. You can see how both approaches have their pros and cons.

<comment><USER5> Yes! CCS feels like "the" concurrent equivalent of the lambda calculus (although really there's a huge family of similar simple process calculi that are all essentially the same). CSP feels very large and untidy in comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The whole book: [http://www.usingcsp.com/](http://www.usingcsp.com/)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for sharing

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ha - nice to see this - myself and a few others built a transputer compatible VM - [http://www.transterpreter.org/](http://www.transterpreter.org/) and used it to run occam2 and derivatives on various machines, and robots including the cell processor in the PS3.

</comment><comment><USER9> This brings back happy memories for me. In the late 80s, I wrote thousands of lines of Occam for a Meiko Computing Surface made from Inmos T800 Transputers. Among the parallel algorithms I implemented was Lamport's algorithm for finding shortest paths in a graph.

<comment><USER10> Sounds really interesting!

Can you write more about the programming experience? Particularly the handling parallel processes and communication, but also general observations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> CSP formed the basis for a good chunk of my graduate work.

One concept we explored was using CSP as a 'formal backbone' that handled communication/parallelism in complex systems while allowing stand-alone 'business logic' to co-exist without the need for the same level of rigour.

If you're reasoning about a concurrency problem, doing a quick CSP spec on the back of an envelope is a great way to 'check your math.'

Steve Schneider's book is a very approachable text on the subject: [https://www.amazon.ca/Concurrent-Real-time-Systems-CSP- Appro...](https://www.amazon.ca/Concurrent-Real-time-Systems-CSP- Approach/dp/0471623733)

<comment><USER12> [http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/books/concurrency/](http://www.cs.rhbnc.ac.uk/books/concurrency/)

That book has been made availabel for free as a PDF.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find this concept really remarkable and extraordinary. When I first encountered it I was still programming in Java and to my surprise there is an implementation of it in Java, see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JCSP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JCSP)

I really enjoyed playing with this library. Somehow the basic abstractions and the mental model to use it felt much easier in general than the threading model. It reminded me of go channels for some extent. It is also a very powerful concept. It even allows to emulate the actor model. Sadly it is not actively developed any more.

<comment><USER14> "It reminded me of go channels for some extent."

Go channels explicitly drew from CSP for inspiration, but it is not exactly the CSP in the paper.

That said, almost everything that draws from CSP for inspiration has at least a small difference from the paper, if you analyze it closely enough. Often major differences. The idea seems robust enough to those variations that it's not a problem, though.

<comment><USER15> How is it robust if Go is pretty much the only widely used CSP implementation in existence. And Go itself is constantly fighting CSP deficiencies, trying to abstract it away and move closer to actors. Still not getting there, because actors cannot be properly implemented on top of CSP and CSP alone cannot be used for anything real world related.

If anyone wants to learn something from CSP, learn why it doesn't work.

<comment><USER16> Could you be a bit more specific? _Why_ do you think it doesn't work? _Why_ do you think actors are better? And _why_ can't actors be properly implemented on top of CSP?

<comment><USER17> I touched on this in my MSc thesis [1], see section 2.6 and 3.4.1. The original CSP can only work if you stay on a single machine. You can have channels in a distributed setting but you need to make the reading capability of a channel limited to a single consumer. If there are multiple possible readers at the same time it gets impossible to know where to send each message and in a distributed setting there's no way of solving that, short of solving distributed consensus. Cloud Haskell [2] section 4 touches this as well.

[1]: [http://studentarbeten.chalmers.se/publication/256251-singly-...](http://studentarbeten.chalmers.se/publication/256251-singly- typed-actors-in-agda-an-approach-to-distributed-programming-with-dependent- types) [2]: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/remote.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I took CSP as a basis for learning how distributed and concurrent protocols work, and then did Erlang to see that into reality. Great thing to learn</comment>


Ask HN: 'Idea' guy moving in the right direction? - <AUTHOR>

So, I'm an idea guy with no means of attracting a quality tech founder.  Yes I have a business degree, but I want more involvement.  I want to UNDERSTAND the inner workings of my theoretical products inside and out (Or as best I can, to enhance productivity & communication).
I'm a little over a year out of college, and my 9-5 is slowly melting my brain.  I am kicking myself for not majoring in CS.
My actions are the following: I want to build web apps, in order to hack together a pathetic prototype I have purchased Learn to Program by Chris Pine.  It teaches the basics of Ruby, I am then planning on starting Rails with either;
--Ruby on Rails 3 Tutorial-- or --Agile Web development with Rails--  Opinions?
I have varying levels of PS, HTML, CSS, SEO experience.
I need to learn some Javascript. Material suggestions?
I seriously considered Python/Django, however the web apps that most closely resemble the itch I'm trying to scratch are hiring Rails developers, so that was the biggest deciding factor as both have great communities and my project is no tech marvel.
To name a few, spare time day dreaming at my 9-5 consists of: Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Four Steps to the Epiphany, Rework, Vinicius Vacanti, HN, Last but certainly not least, my main man PG
I am happy, excited, and most of all, hungry.
I more than welcome any constructive criticism this community may offer.
-J <comment><USER2> Some thoughts:

* First of all, good on you for trying to learn how to build stuff.

* "I need to learn some Java. Material suggestions?" --> I'm assuming you mean JavaScript. I've heard good things about <http://eloquentjavascript.net/contents.html>, which is free and has an interactive REPL right in the browser as you do the tutorial.

* "I seriously considered Python/Django..." --> personally I think Python is a much easier language than Ruby for beginners. The syntax is cleaner and more readable. The reason you give for using RoR instead is understandable given your lack of experience, but it's not actually valid. You can make exactly the same apps with Rails and Django, and I don't think one is even more conducive to any specific type of app than the other. I've also heard bad things about the Rails community, though I haven't verified any of that personally. If I were you I'd spend 30-60 mins on Python and Ruby each, and choose based on which you're more comfortable working with.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the javascript suggestions.

I am 1/2 way through Chris Pine's Learn to Program Ruby book. I hear <http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index> is a good resource for beginners, I will take a look.

Thoughts? Any other tutorials/books you recommend for Python/Django?

<comment><USER3> As mentioned by others, Learn Python the Hard Way is a great place to start. I suggest supplementing it with:

The Google tutorial on Python. [1] Python by Osmosis screencasts [2] Django Book online. [3] ProudN00b is a great blog on a similar path from little coding experience to Python + Django [4]

[1] [http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python- class/int...](http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python- class/introduction.html) [2] <http://www.youtube.com/user/ryanmshea> [3] <http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/> [4] <http://www.proudn00b.com/archive>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much. Really appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey mate, I know this is going to sound like spamming but check out www.mmmilan.tumblr.com I just made a post about pretty much exactly this. I started out as the "idea guy" and have started hacking on my own project.

Some advice that worked for me, take your idea, and strip it down to the one function that makes it valuable. Learn how to do that. There's lots of good tutorials online. I never did the tutorials word for word, I just used them to learn functions that would apply to my application. Also, don't be tempted to fall into just copying and pasting code. Learn what it means, write it yourself, tinker with it.

The stuff that BAFFLED me when I looked at it originally makes perfect sense now. It comes to you, don't get stressed out, just take it in steps and you'll be shocked how far you get.

Feel free to email me, I'm in no way some master coder but I know where you're coming from.

Cheers and best of luck!

<comment><USER5> Nice to see another person take the leap! Us wannabe hackers gotta stick together :) Good luck on your own endeavour as well! My initial blog was actually on tumblr as well but it was annoying that you had to get a plugin for comments so I jumped to wordpress. Something you might want to consider if you plan on blogging and interacting with visitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where do you live? The big tech cities have plenty of events and hackerspace- esque places that will hold fundamentals courses. Look for Meetups.

Despite your comment on Rails hiring, I've found that the larger Python community runs better events. Everything you learn about CS, programming, software engineering, web performance, etc. will hold.

Also, even if it seems illogical for some reason, nobody uses just one thing. The advantages that certain languages and toolkits hold over others are a wash unless you're doing something special, and you already recognize that you're not. You'll pick up much more as time goes on, and you'll never stop.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm from NY. I plan on networking as soon as I develop my understanding a bit further. I will look to take advantage of fundamentals courses. That's a good idea, thanks.

I'm going to play around with Python for the rest of the week and then decide. It really doesn't matter to me much, I have no preference... I'm just eager to pick one and start prototyping.

<comment><USER6> The NYC Python meetup is terrific. Tons of smart people there. There's a huge crossover with the Django meetup. NYC Ruby is good too. You should consider the Web Performance meetup if you want to know about web architecture.

There are fundamentals courses at General Assembly, and it's a good environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's amazing how I'm on the same situation. Actually it's if you think it's not that amazing, I bet like us there are loads of people trying o do the same thing.

The questions that crosses my mind are:

Should we do everything by ourselves or should we try to find partership?

I have been looking for partnership but it's very complicated. Everyone has it's own ideas and no one wants to be part on someone's else idea. I still couldn't figure out a way to solve this. Maybe it's even an insight for an idea.

What I'm doing is trying to learn to do by myself. I'm taking the easy path, using frameworks and everything that helps.

At the moment I'm trying to put my ideas together with: jquery, wordpress, some PHP basically for the wordpress integration and hacks, and APIs. And I'm aware I should start with some server side. I would go for the RoR.

Just sharing my toughts here. I'd appreciate any comment on that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've gone through a few potential co-founders. I'm currently working with one on an idea I had, it's going OK... but that's about it. It's really hard to attract quality Programmers, I'd like to educate myself a bit further before I make a serious networking push.

Development has been very slow, and I'm really trying to adhere to MVP and Lean Startup practices. Therefore, I'm going to take the time to learn how to hack some garbage together with hopes of attracting some talent.

I wish you the best, stay motivated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think we have come a long ways since the days you need to write everything from scratch just to get a basic web site up and running to get your idea across. Have you check out Umbraco? It's a CMS but very easy to use and extend. You can get your basic site up and running in no time. If you want to extend it further, you have custom control that you can add using XSLT, Java Script, C#, etc... This way, you can focus on building your idea instead of building a web site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm familiar with Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal. I believe I'm looking for more web app dev/functionality vs building a general website.

I will certainly check out Umbraco, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm enjoying finding my webapp niche and letting others do the bits I don't like (js). knowing how to admin your own system is key to providing you freedom, but know when to outsource work so you yourself can get work done.

use redmine, wikis, SCM, etc, and find the vibrant community you most resonate with. for me it was the django/python communities. get creative and have fun, that is also important.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm kinda in the same boat. I've been blogging about my 'turning hacker' journey at <http://pragmaticstartup.wordpress.com>. You might find it helpful. I've got some posts on learning Python and why I chose Python as well which might be interesting. All in all, good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Believe it or not I've stumbled upon your blog before in searching for some answers to questions touched on in this post. I must say your blog was a big motivator based on the fact we're both young and non-MBA business guys looking to make our mark in the tech/startup world.

This post was very PRO python/django... other posts I've searched on HN have been pro Ruby/Rails. The best piece of advice I've gotten is to try both, I burned down 1/2 the entry rails book I ordered... Loved it(or maybe I was just excited to create some extreme novice terminal program telling me how many characters are in my full name). Tonight I'm going to attack the Learnpythonthehardway tutorial and then decide.

Do you feel like you're coming along quickly? Enjoying yourself thus far? PS I plan on blogging about this endeavor.

<comment><USER5> Oh yeah, its been fun. The learning curve can be pretty daunting at times but that's what its all about. I think having fun is an important part of it, so it seems like you enjoy this process of learning as thats definitely a good sign. Do keep us posted on your progress! Looking forward to sharing experiences :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd suggest starting with Mozilla Dev Network/Javascript [1] for learning Javascript. Going through how JQuery/YUI/[library of choice] is written is pretty interesting and a great learning experience.

[1] <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/javascript>

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been working as a Product Manager (aka idea guy) for the past 4 years in NYC and would love to help. My e-mail is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER12> Jcasc - looking for learning java material?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes sir, deciding between Prototype or Jquery. Although I am rather uneducated regarding Javascript as a topic. Any reading you can suggest would help.

<comment><USER13> It seems you want to learn Javascript, not Java. Javascript is the language that can be used to manipulate objects on the browser. Prototype and Jquery are written in Javascript.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, ignore my Java comment. I would start out with just plain ole Javascript.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rounding errors found in 30% of precinct math worksheets from Iowa Caucus - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/LuluFriesdat/status/1225256764649680898 <comment><USER2> Appears to have been retracted.

<comment><AUTHOR> So it would seem. There's now a NYT article so I'll post that instead.</comment></comment>


TACK: Trust Assertions for Certificate Keys - <AUTHOR> http://tack.io/draft.html

<comment><AUTHOR> it seems like it signs the keys using the domain name to ensure the domain name is who it says the domain name is.

i'm not certain what it means if for example I send you my phishing link to www.paypayl.com which I would own in that case, and be able to sign properly. it seems more like a dnssec kind of replacement in that regard.

i gotta re-read this a few times because I feel like that's not all that cool if it does only that.

then again it does claim to be a better pinning mechanism that does not rely on the trust chain or let you still trust the site even if the SSL/TLS trust chain is broken.</comment>


Show HN: DeathStats.org – Tracking weekly death numbers in the UK - <AUTHOR> https://deathstats.org <comment><USER2> Wow what happens in week 52?</comment>


Show HN: Advent of Code in a different language every day - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nitnelave/advent_of_code_2019 <comment><AUTHOR> Advent of code ([https://adventofcode.com/2019](https://adventofcode.com/2019)) is a programming puzzle a day for each day of December, in increasing difficulty.

I chose to start with the more "esoteric" languages to keep the ones I was more familiar with for when the problems are more complex :)

<comment><USER2> Am doing the same thing, but am quite behind. Planning to use my vacation to make up for it. [https://uku.dev/](https://uku.dev/)</comment></comment>


Why Could Google Die... - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/misteroo/why-could-google-die?type=powerpoint <comment><USER2> Friendster didn't fall from grace due to disruptive innovations, it fell due to disagreements between the founders and the investors.</comment>


Ultimate collection of Apple stories - <AUTHOR> http://folklore.org/index.py

<comment><AUTHOR> Since everyone is looking for cool Apple stories, I thought I'd help you out and link to an archive of amazing stories compiled by Andy Hertzfield.</comment>


Campus Data - <AUTHOR> http://campusdata.org/

<comment><USER2> Have been wanting to get an API at the local university, but facing similar issues others have mentioned in that guidebook. The administrators spew security concerns, but really they're just worried that students will build better services for each other using access to open data, and thus eventually put them out of a cushy job.</comment>