Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory - <AUTHOR> https://sourcegraph.com/blog/mandatory-vacation <comment><USER2> "If I had seven hours to cut down a tree, I would spend the first five sharpening my axe." \- Abraham Lincoln

Many tech jobs are brain work. This is not like an assembly line. If you're not sharp, you're not very effective. Worse, you're making more mistakes, which are going to take time to find and fix. A tired engineer can be literally worse than useless.

So take vacation without feeling guilty. Encourage (force?) your employees to do so, too. But don't stop there. Go home at night when you're tired. Don't come in for the weekend. Come back with a brain that's ready to go.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree, the motto of 'we don't have a vacation policy, just take time off if you need it' creates usually the wrong sort of culture and dynamics, leading to guilt, etc. Lack of clarity around expectations is commonly a source of anxiety and stress. Whenever possible I encourage that people take 1 week off per quarter.

<comment><USER4> My employer does this, I don't mind it. I took a whole month off last year as a block.

As an employee, what you should do is actually take their statements at face- value, but I acknowledge that this may be harder for entry-level guys.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it depends people by people, it IS OK to take that amount of time off if the 'non policy' allows it, but most people don't do that out of fear / guilt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the things I've seen looking at many companies is the _mandatory shutdown_. Key maintenance staff stays on, but the place is a ghost town for, say 2 weeks in the summer and the last 2 weeks of the year. (The maintenance guys have a similar system, though staggered)

That way there's no excuse of "I have to stay on because $BIGPROJECTX needs my help." There's literally nothing going on. Go home. Get a life.

Such drastic measures are necessary, unfortunately, because just a few folks working 1.5x hours can end up sucking everybody else in. If you make it mandatory and set a designated date, it's much harder to have the game- playing.

Note that this is also a good way for people who work together to do things together. After all, you're all off during the same times :)

<comment><USER6> After a startup I was working at was acquired, the company that bought us had a week-long mandatory shutdown in mid-January. This was horrible since many of us had already taken vacation a few weeks earlier for Christmas/New Years. Also, this time would have counted against our vacation days which meant that we would be less likely for us to be able to take time off during other times of the year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've met a lot of people who are proud to be "the only one who knows how to do X" where X is something very important to the company or software product.

They seem to think this makes them extra-valuable to the company. But I think the common perception of others is that the "valuable" employee is actually always a constant bottleneck and thus a source of pain. "We can't do X because Timmy is at his kid's soccer game for another hour...ugh."

If you think that if you took time off "everything would fall apart", you might want to consider how others perceive that situation.

(Personally, I've always automated what I could and trained backup people in what I couldn't, and it''s worked out well for me. And I get to take guilt- free vacations. :)

<comment><USER8> "the only one who knows how to do X" implies a Bus Factor of 1 - which is a big weakness for the organization.

Even if some people may like being irreplaceable in this way, it's a failure of managers if they allow it to continue.

<comment><USER9> I always try to write up documentation and offload the crap I'm doing or at least teach it to someone else.

Doesn't work that well in practice but it helps to demonstrate that I am trying to get information out of my brain into others.

I hate being "that one guy" for anything to be honest. Means I get stuck with it forever. Like one linux kernel developer said, never be the last guy to update the floppy disk driver, you'll own that code forever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Swede here. I got 27 days paid vacation, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, so five weeks plus two days. Plus all the national holidays. Am I right if I understand this post as two weeks is almost an exception for Americans? If that's the case it's really saddening.

<comment><USER11> If you think that is saddening, compare your maternity/paternity leave to what workers in the United States get.

US workers have no nationwide guaranteed paid maternity or paternity leave, and 12 weeks of unpaid leave (and that only if they work at a company with 50 or more employees).

A couple states (including California) do require employers to provide 6 weeks paid leave).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> At my last employer (a small startup), we had very clear vacation rules:

\- Every week, you track the hours you worked (honor system- we just filed out a spreadsheet). \- You're expected to work X - 4 hours a week on average (X being a normal work week, 4 being the number of vacation hours you accrue per week).

So, if you work X hours a week, you'll find yourself with about 26 days of vacation at the end of the year. If you work long hours for a few spots and find you averaged X + 2 hours a week, you end up with 39 days of vacation. You could use your hours whenever you want (and even go negative if you didn't get too crazy).

It set clear expectations, showed that people were expected to take vacation, and made everyone feel like they were entitled to their days off, rather than guilty. I thought it was pretty neat.

That said, we dismantled the system about 6 months after I joined because although most of us didn't mind the hour tracking, a few people _really_ disliked it.

<comment><USER13> Numbers like 26 and 39 vacation days tell me that you are not in North America.

Over here we are talking about 10-15 vacation days per year.

<comment><USER12> No, this was in SF. I was just fudging the numbers a little: X was actually 50 hours (which I left out because it wasn't particularly important to the story). So, if you work X hours a week, you get 4*52=208 hours of vacation. If X were 40, that'd be 208/8 = 26 days. Since it's 50, it's 208/10 = 21 days.

<comment><USER12> That said, I'm now at an "unlimited" vacation time place (still in SF), and I've had no problem asking for time off. I took 3.5 weeks around christmas for a trip to New Zealand, and I'll probably take a week this summer to visit family on the east coast (in addition to a day here and there for local trips).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one who wasn't really aware of the fact that people feel guilty about taking their vaccation days? I am working in IT since 2007 and I always felt that I needed much more vaccation then I got and I never felt bad about taking my vaccation. But it is perhaps because I come from a workers family and worked as a heating engeneer and on an assembly line before my IT career?

While negotiating a higher salery my boss told me that he wasn't able to meet my expectation moneywise and asked what I would like to have instead, a new computer, phone, etc. I took a extra week of vaccation days instead.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the job, it was interesting and I made good friends there, etc. but nothing beats a week abroad meeting new people, partying and so on.

And btw. yesterday I started at a new company, and I'm going on a 2 weeks vaccation next month already, nobody seems to have a problem with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> The companies are doing it to decrease liability on some accounting spreadsheets.

If you really care about staff you improve work life balance, pay competitive rates, spot and remove dumb managers and assholes.

Sorry but 2 weekss mandatory vacation is not going to help much, on the contrary it might make someone angry when forced to take time off when the company is slow, not when a poor dev wants to actually go somewhere for holidays.

<comment><USER16> I didn't see anything in article about forcing you to take time off when the company is slow. In fact this seems to contradict one of their goals, to make sure the systems are maintainable without you.

<comment><USER15> You are right, I was talking a company I worked at :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would love to hear if any other companies are doing the same thing or considering it, and from anyone who works in banking and has to take mandatory time off.

Reddit comments here: [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1zglqs/mandator...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1zglqs/mandatory_vacations_in_tech_better_code_happier/).

<comment><USER17> Most companies in Europe will do this (although with 5+ weeks). They tend to be mostly competitive. It is a bit hard to understand why US tech workers put up with not having this.

<comment><USER18> People in the US may be paying more attention to cold hard cash and less to vacation promises.

<comment><USER19> It's not a promise when it's written in your contract.

But – in contrast to the US I guess – in the EU breaching this contract as am employer _will_ cost you dearly; there are even courts dedicated for employment disputes in some countries, resulting in timely rulings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> From my brazilian perspective it's very strange to read this. In Brazil, vacation is mandatory by law. Any employee has 30 days of vacation by year. But the moment the employee goes on vacation and how he does it (30 days straight, 15-15 days, 20-10...) is still discussed previously with the employer.

I'm not judging which one is better, just acknowledging the culture difference.

<comment><USER19> Swiss here; having 25 days excluding local and national holidays.

It really is a strange sight, this theme popping up all the time on HN, with some author proclaiming "look guys this is a good thing because X,Y,Z", when it's an absolute no-brainer for oneself.

Mind you, 25 days is more or less a norm; the law requires only 20 days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> the intuition behind the OP seems valid, but i wonder if it would succeed given the American concept of 'vacation.'

Americans (compared with Europeans, for instance) view vacation quite differently--in the quantity available (2-3 weeks versus 4-5 weeks); in the amount they can afford to spend on a vacation (in Europe, disposable incomes are generally lower and must be spread over a longer vacation period); and perhaps most of all in the general perception of taking vacation (ie, in the US, i have noticed many people don't even take all of their vacation and brag about that fact). w/r/t the latter point, it almost seems to me as if vacation is viewed as a sort of convalescence--ie, well it's available if you need it, but if you are strong enough then of course there will be no need.

The fact is that our jobs are not physically demanding; we do need a 'rest' from physical activity, but rather we need to rest our minds. But how do you do that when you take your vacation consists of a few four-day weekends each year in which you fly to an oceanside resort, sit by the pool with your iphone, checking your email. You are still thinking about work because there the vacation consists of nothing to replace the work thoughts. What's worse, is that you are more stressed than ever because you are thinking about work, following email but you are not there in the office to personally ensure everyone is doing exactly what they should be.

When i lived and worked in Spain, i took two multi-week vacations, always of the active kind. I enjoy alpine climbing but hiking/trekking or cycling vacations embody the same idea. The level of mental and physical engagement required means that i'm not thinking about work even if i wanted to (and i don't).

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm very curious how you'd enforce "no work email except customer facing stuff", is that just going to be self-enforced?

<comment><AUTHOR> It'll be enforced by the team as well. After all, if the person continues to chime in on emails or commit code, then they're not upholding their end of the bargin with their team (that they'd build good enough systems and write good enough code so they don't have to always be present).

And by "enforce" I don't mean that we have some formal reprimand process or anything, obviously. But if it becomes an issue, we'll deal with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was really impressed by my current company's 60 vacation days per year until I realized that included weekends.

<comment><USER24> I guess you enjoy some luxury vacations each night!

</comment></comment><comment> bjelkeman-again We have 25 days holiday per year for everyone. You are expected to take them and I will be following up on that too.

<comment><USER24> Are you able to put them between weekends?

<comment> bjelkeman-again Absolutely. We count days, not consecutive days. So five weeks holiday effectively, plus bank holidays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I get the point that we need to take vacations. I really enjoy mine, and I try to take at least 3 small-ish vacations during the year, plus a big one.

Having said that... making them mandatory? We're adults, we should act like them.

</comment><comment><USER26> Portuguese here: 25 days each year, more national holidays

</comment><comment><USER27> At my current salt rationer, sorry salary slavemonger, sorry, employer of choice, they do give each employee a set number of days each year. The employee can _request_ to use some/all of those days throughout the year, but, the manager has to approve, and can veto requests. Last year our team lost most of their holiday due to management ineptitude and gross fuckwittery in terms of project management and death-marched delivery plans.

This year, the team, collectively have told the dates and taken it, and basically told management to go swing. If they take action against us taking some holiday, we all resign. Has worked so far.</comment>


Darpa's Next Grand Challenge: Build Us Lifelike, Humanoid Robots - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04/darpa-humanoid-robots/

<comment><USER2> Hey bogolea... I'm the author of the original source over at Hizook.com (which was referenced in the Wired article):

[http://www.hizook.com/blog/2012/04/03/new-darpa-grand- challe...](http://www.hizook.com/blog/2012/04/03/new-darpa-grand-challenge- humanoid-robots-preliminary-unofficial-details)

We work _very_ hard to put together these top-notch articles, and it sucks to have other media sites get all the attention.

EDIT: I went ahead and created a submission for Hizook, here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3806243> Please upvote that one instead ;-)

<comment><USER3> I would suggest that you find the best times to submit stories on HN and publish accordingly. This should give you more of a head start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nano-Ferrorfluid & Nano-3D Printed Nanobots. Autonomous, and probably completely self powered.

Instant T-1000

Go nuts,

;-)</comment>


Australia to abolish 457 work visas - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-to-abolish-457-immigration-work-visas-20170418-gvmw34.html <comment><USER2> Didn't see this one coming, it's the first good thing this government has done, it may even be enough to save the government at the next election.

For international readers, the 457 is quite similar to the h1b visa and suffers many of the same abuses. More abuses actually, there are "customer service managers" waiting tables and other entry level workers that are on this "skilled" visa.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's probably a bit late in some ways, and my understanding is is that there are a fair few other visas that work for this purpose.

Personally, I think this is pandering, after the damage has been done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a bit worrying as I just got my visa but am not in Australia yet. Other news sites mention grandfathering but (understandably) are devoid of details.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say (not a lawyer and all that) but if you've been granted the visa now you're home and hosed. The wheels will probably take a while to turn.

Anecdotally, one job in Melbourne about three years ago comprised about 20-30 457 visa developers, and 3-4 local developers. Either there is a huge shortage and we missed the boat on education, or companies are abusing it (imo).

Edit: Where I was going with that last thought: companies weren't happy paying the IT rates they were (which to my mind were less than most trades and most professions, in any case), so they've imported workers that will work for less. Companies still want this, and Turnbull as a result still wants this, so I wouldn't worry about finding a way around it if it becomes an issue.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I hope so.

Re: shortage vs. abuse, perhaps it's a bit of both. I'm joining a small dev team of 4 locals. The hiring and visa process wasn't simple and probably quite costly. The pay's not bad either so I can't imagine that they didn't look for locals to hire.

<comment><USER4> Not a lawyer here either but I'd say you're safe if your visa has already been granted. By grandfathering of the existing visas, they probably mean that there will be a path for existing 457s to move on to another visa when their term expires so usually either a residency or citizenship. They did this with other visas before(family visas) where existing(and in progress) ones remained until expiry but newer ones were not granted.

The 457 system, similar to the student visa before it, was being abused by companies. So the government has been working on fixing the loopholes in the system for quite a while now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Move On, Make Hacker News Responsive - <AUTHOR>

I get it, we love the nostalgia of something ancient persisting into the future, but a couple lines and a @media query could kill the needed pinch and zoom on thousands of phones a day. <comment><USER2> Well, there's a plethora of HN apps, if you really really want a mobile experience. I'm actually super-happy I don't have to 'request desktop site' when I go to HN on my phone to get a non-responsive site.</comment>


David J.C. MacKay, Machine Learning pioneer, dies - <AUTHOR> http://itila.blogspot.com/2016/04/appendix-three-correspondence-visitors.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> My first programming job was working in David's research group, helping transition Dasher ([http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/)) from a research project into one more generally useful for accessibility purposes. I still feel that that job was perhaps the most useful work I've ever done - I had the opportunity to write code that in some cases literally made it practical for people to communicate, and that (along with David's strong views on social responsibility) ended up strongly shaping my perspective on what technology's role in society should be.

I saw David only rarely after leaving the group to do my PhD, and hadn't in years before I saw him at a group reunion last month. I'm saddened that I passed on so many opportunities to learn more from him.

<comment><USER3> Regarding Dasher, David mentioned recently* that he hopes someone carries on supporting the work. It's a brilliant example of arithmetic coding in action and helps many people communicate through low bandwidth channels. Now that he's gone, I don't think any has any ownership over the project. It'll be a huge shame for it to be forgotten about. If anyone's interested in helping in someway, mention it here and I'm sure we can figure something out. Here's a quick example of it an action ([https://youtu.be/ie9Se7FneXE?t=28m38s](https://youtu.be/ie9Se7FneXE?t=28m38s) \- Google Talk from 2007)

[*] David was still teaching us information theory just last month, despite going through chemo which by his admission seemed to take a lot out of him. By everyone's account he was astounding lecturer. He really cared that no one fell behind. Very sad about the news today.

<comment><USER2> There's some active development at [https://github.com/ipomoena/dasher/releases](https://github.com/ipomoena/dasher/releases) , discussed by David at [http://itila.blogspot.com/2016/03/dasher- version-50-released...](http://itila.blogspot.com/2016/03/dasher- version-50-released.html)

<comment><USER3> Ahah, superb. I wasn't aware of that. Still good to bring attention to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A British scientist and mathematician known for two fine books, both of which are available to read online.

"Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" ([http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)) does the sums on sources of sustainable energy, to try to establish whether they present a realistic alternative to fossil fuels. It might make sense to read this as a companion to Bret Victor's "What can a technologist do about climate change?" ([http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)), though MacKay's book mostly doesn't talk about climate change but about fuel exhaustion.

"Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms" ([http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/)) is a readable and charming (but mathematical) book that touches on a lot of topics in information theory. A lot of it is over my head, but I most recently referred to it just a couple of weeks ago for its chapters about the mathematics of neural nets, including a chapter given to estimating the information capacity of a single neuron.

He was only 48 and had stomach cancer, which he wrote about on his blog ([http://itila.blogspot.co.uk/](http://itila.blogspot.co.uk/)).

<comment><USER5> His diary is remarkable, highly recommended. Here is an index to his posts for easier navigation:

[http://itila.blogspot.de/2016/04/index-for- first-23-cancer-c...](http://itila.blogspot.de/2016/04/index-for- first-23-cancer-chapters.html)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> His book 'Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms', often posted here on HN: [http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/itila/p0.html](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/itila/p0.html)

His donation page: [https://www.justgiving.com/davidjcmackay?utm_source=email&ut...](https://www.justgiving.com/davidjcmackay?utm_source=email&utm_medium=emails- from-eua&utm_content=shorturl&utm_campaign=eua-email-sponsorshiprequest)

How he dealt with his illness: [http://itila.blogspot.gr/2016/01/bye-bye- chemotherapy-hello-...](http://itila.blogspot.gr/2016/01/bye-bye-chemotherapy- hello-tp53.html?m=1)

</comment><comment><USER6> I know him from his pioneering work on sustainable energy. Actually working out from physics principles what is possible that can balance supply and demand in an ongoing way.

You can read it free online - I like the print copy though! (It's for the UK, but has lots of useful referenced data for anywhere)

[http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)

I met him a few times in Cambridge trying to organise a campaign about Climate Change. He was passionate and fun. Sad that I never really delivered for him.

Rest well David, combining a scientist's accuracy and detail with a human's care for the world.

<comment><USER7> I saw him present the material from Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air at a lecture in Cambridge. It remains the best lecture I ever saw. He crammed months' worth of learning into my brain in an hour. And he invented Dasher. Top bloke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is deeply saddening, and a huge loss for rational thought at the highest level. With his book on information theory and learning algorithms, David leaves the wonderful legacy of demystifying the central concepts that have brought about the ongoing information revolution, and it remains an absolute tour-de-force, even after years of further developments. I want to say "thank you" for all the wonderful insights; presented with clarity, wit and humanity.

</comment><comment><USER6> This post on David working out what to tell his children (age 1 and 4) about his cancer is moving [http://itila.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/what-do-you-tell- childre...](http://itila.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/what-do-you-tell- children.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> David J. C. MacKay (born 1967-2016), British academic researcher in information theory and environmentalism, inventor, government advisor and educator:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._C._MacKay](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._C._MacKay)

</comment><comment><USER10> His lectures on inference were the best and most worthwhile course I took as an undergraduate, and his text book is good enough that I have two copies at home and one at work. He had a big effect on how I look at the universe. He later became one of the only voices on energy policy that I trusted, and enjoyed hearing his clear thinking on the national news. Thank you, djcm. The world owes you quite a lot and probably has yet to realise it.

</comment><comment><USER11> A professor of mine instructed me to "devour" MacKay's "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms". To this day it is one of the only textbooks I have purchased on my own initiative (not for a class), and this is after I read many chapters online. I also thoroughly enjoyed his video lectures [1] for a course he taught based on the book.

News of his passing deeply saddens me.

[1] [http://videolectures.net/david_mackay/](http://videolectures.net/david_mackay/)

</comment><comment><USER12> His book, renewable energy without the hot air, is something that I frequently use as a reference and my last comment on Hacker news was a reference it. I had no idea he had cancer, as I read his other blog.

It's deeply saddening that someone who has had a significant positive impact on the UK - as an advisor to the government - and world, won't be able to continue to make more positive impacts. I imagine it would be hard for someone to fill the gap that has been left by him.

</comment><comment><USER13> His lectures as part of the Physics tripos were certainly the best (in terms of engaging, exciting, interesting and actually educating) I remember as an undergrad - at the time the smartness, enthusiasm and slightly unorthodox approach reminded me a bit of what I'd imagine Feynman's teaching to have been like.

It's a huge testament that right now now I can see 3 different copies of Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms sitting on 3 different desks in our office. He will be missed :(

</comment><comment><USER14> One hell of a great communicator. Large swaths of my life are still affected by his Sustainable Energy book. I never had a chance to meet him, but I'll carry his words with me forever.</comment>


Chicago undergraduate mathematics bibliography - <AUTHOR> http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/chicmath.htm?resubmit=hn <comment><USER2> Recent discussion on /r/math: [https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/3dbcfm/chicago_underg...](https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/3dbcfm/chicago_undergraduate_mathematics_bibliography/)

<comment><USER3> The Reddit discussion includes a comment by the original author of the bibliography.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have to rep for my favorite math text that pretty much no one else has heard of: Ray Mayer's Introduction to Analysis [1]. It's rigorous, compellingly readable, and accessible to college freshmen. It was never published commercially, but decades of students where I went to school have been delighted by it, tortured by it, or both.

[1] [http://people.reed.edu/~mayer/math112.html/index.html](http://people.reed.edu/~mayer/math112.html/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> > Janusz, Calculus

> The worst calculus book ever written. This was the 150s text in 1994–95; it > tries to give a Spivak-style rigorous presentation in colorful mainstream- > calculus-book format and reading level. Horrible. Take a look at it to see > how badly written a mathematics book can be.

Pretty scathing review.

<comment><USER6> It really is a horrible text-book, Chris and/or Marci showed me once. Fortunately my class used Spivak instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this list could use some updating. Most books on the list are super old. Also, from cursory look, there appears to be only one book on discrete math in _Intermediate_. There are tons of discrete math books that should serve as stepping stones for the one listed. For example, Discrete Intro to Math by Edward Scheinerman and Discrete Math by Susanna Epp.

<comment><AUTHOR> Old books aren't bad, in fact, it's rare that new books are much better than _the very best_ of the old books.

The Reddit discussion linked in another comment yields an updated Github repository, but a cursory glance didn't come up with any big changes.

Re: your Discrete Math complaint; if the author (and his friends, there were very few reviewers involved) didn't specialize in Discrete Math, then it's not surprising that somethign is missing. In fact the author actually explicitly says that the list is incomplete and which his specialties were.

<comment><USER7> I am not really complaining about Discrete Math. The book listed in _Intermediate_ is fairly/horrendously difficult for someone who hasn't seen elementary treatment of the subject before.

Also, there are newer books of comparable quality to old classics like Algebra by Birkhoff/Maclane. If nothing, they have updated prose. Chapter 0 by Aluffi is phenomenal, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Recommending Maclane as the only book on Category Theory is a bit rough. I would add «Conceptual Mathematics» by Lawvere to the elementary list to be prepared.

</comment><comment><USER9> I miss Eckhart. It was a great place to study.

<comment><USER10> +1 (tho i was never an undergrad, or a math major)</comment></comment>


Adobe CEO avoids a question about why its priced $1400 more in Australia - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaR2jR-RpYo&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> 1\. He handled it poorly, I think he could have just answered more directly and it wouldn't have looked bad.

2\. I don't see why people are so upset about it. Obviously the reason they charge 1400 more is because when they put that price tag in Australia, australians still buy it. What happened to free market?

<comment><USER3> What happened to the free market is that it isn't (a free market). It's illegal in many places to reverse-engineer the .psd file format - and there are many places where even if it's not illegal the potential lawyer costs are so prohibitive that it may as well be.

<comment><USER4> Adobe has made the file format available on the web, it's in the top three results from Google.

<comment><USER3> > Adobe has made the file format available on the web

Good for them. Nonetheless, my point stands. In many places, it is illegal to reverse-engineer file formats, and in many places it isn't illegal but may as well be due to the potential costs of determining that it is legal.

(For instance, "The information in this document is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Adobe Systems Incorporated. ". What happens if/when they pull said document?)

(Also: note that them documenting their file format is _not_ the same thing as there being no potential liability for anyone to use said info.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stripe Growl: Growl Notifications for Stripe.com - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/michaelschade/stripe_growl

<comment><USER2> After seeing a few of these I think it would be great to have a more generalized open source project that any app could use fairly easily, preferably done in a way to give decent cross platform support.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you talking specifically about the notifications?

If so: GNTP is what I'm using for the notifications throughh Growl and there's already a Growl for Windows that supports GNTP (<http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/help/gntp.aspx>). I haven't used, so not sure if/how well it works.

Otherwise, if you're talking about the configuration and headless service aspect, I could see some room for a more generalized template. I wonder if already exists for that.

<comment><USER3> Take a look at Guard, which has support for a variety of notification methods.</comment></comment></comment>


Intel has no chance in servers and they know it - <AUTHOR> https://semiaccurate.com/2018/08/07/intel-has-no-chance-in-servers-and-they-know-it/ <comment><USER2> 'Intel has no chance in servers and they know it' is a little hyperbolic when they currently have over 90% of the server market. Maybe when they have been reduced down to single digit figures you can say they have no chance.

Despite the current scaling issues they can simply reduce margins to be price competitive and keep up their market share. AMD entering the market is a great way for Microsoft/Google/etc to negotiate hard for the CPU's needed for the next datacentre/upgrade cycle.

Reading semiaccurate.com feels a bit like reading InfoWars, everything is a conspiracy.

<comment><USER3> > Reading semiaccurate.com feels a bit like reading InfoWars, everything is a > conspiracy.

That may be but Intel is certainly not beyond ... ahem ... interesting tactics. Demoing a CPU holding 5GHz by cooling it via an industrial chiller just to steal some of AMD's thunder?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problems Intel has at 10nm are well covered by the tech press. And Intel has confirmed this to investors. The thing that is new here is the claim that internal documents show that Intel is rather more worried than people expected.

It's not really believable that Intel thinks it has no chance in servers. What I think is believable is that Intel will not be able to limit AMD's advance into their market share. This should start to show in next quarter's results, as AMD server product qualifications are finalised by large data centres (as AMD has pointed out in their briefings).

What I had believed until now is that Intel was essentially pivoting to a different strategy, moving away from traditional CPUs. But this article makes me believe they have just miscalculated and could be in for a rough few years (where rough, for Intel, is still making billions of dollars).

<comment><USER5> > What I had believed until now is that Intel was essentially pivoting to a > different strategy, moving away from traditional CPUs.

Intel is addicted to $100 - $3,000/CPU for its "traditional CPUs." Where do you think they would move to exactly?

<comment><USER4> They've hired heavily on the GPU side and announced a partnership with AMD (presumably to use their infinity fabric).

This'll sound a bit strange at this point, but I have the feeling CPU's will become little more than an I/O controller in the long term. Much consumer computing will be done in the data centre. Data centres will be dominated with devices that look more like GPUs and TPUs than CPUs.

Naturally, GPUs will inherit more CPU like features before this happens.

<comment><USER6> If it runs all of today's software with at most a recompile, that sounds like a CPU to me.

<comment><USER4> There's no way today's software can be scaled in terms of performance in the face of the "end of Moore's law", with a mere recompile. Today's software will be displaced by tomorrow's software. Of course I am talking fairly long term here. But I believe all major players are making very definite moves in this direction.

Major hardware companies have to have fairly long roadmaps, because they have so much inertia. And they have to reveal what they are up to, to their investors. I certainly don't believe these roadmaps reveal another couple of decades of die shrinks and IPC gains. They reveal a real shift of strategy, across the board. Consumers simply won't be able to afford the "CPUs" of the future.

<comment><USER6> I don't expect renting computers in the cloud to get more expensive. Do you? The end of Moore's law means slower improvements, not that things will actually get worse. If anything, it means computers in data centers need to be replaced less often, so on a per-hour basis, they're still cheaper.

For a scalable application, better performance basically means reducing expenses. If your cloud computing bills aren't high to begin with, it may not be worth the rewrite. Of course there might be new companies or new projects that can use TPU's for machine learning, etc.

But Moore's law is not the only way to scale better. Today's machine learning algorithms are ridiculously inefficient and that seems unlikely to remain true forever, given the amount of research being done. A series of algorithmic improvements might result in a 10-100x reduction in cost, or maybe even not needing TPU's anymore?

Who knows what the future will bring, but making straight-line predictions in a fast-moving field like machine learning seems unlikely to work out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Previous submission was flag killed for being click-bait: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17708847](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17708847)</comment>


Bitcoin Exchange Had Too Many Bitcoins - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-02/bitcoin-exchange-had-too-many-bitcoins <comment><USER3> Great writeup. Almost anything written by Matt Levine is worth reading.

This is a concise and accurate description of the fun that occurred with Bitfinex's handling of the BCH fork.

At least, it's fun if you weren't involved. If you naively held BTC on Bitfinex and were hoping to receive an equal amount of BCH you probably didn't think it was fun. If you carefully read Bitfinex's statements and decided to take advantage of their policy to acquire risk-free BCH, you probably think it's even less fun. But for the rest of us, it's fun.

<comment><USER4> Matt sums it up well in a footnote:

      Imagine if I announced tomorrow that I had created a new blockchain,
      called Bitcoin Matt, and that everyone who owned a BTC today
      will tomorrow own both a BTC and a BCM.

      Fine, great, you all own BCMs, congratulations. But also anyone
      short a BTC today will be short a BCM tomorrow, and will be
      forced to go buy in those BCM shorts.

      Even with no economic support for BCM -- with nobody mining
      it, or using it, or treating it as a store of value -- I have
      magically created demand for it, just because BTC short-sellers
      will be forced to buy it in to cover their shorts.

      And if no one else is using it, then it will trade very thinly,
      and it will be very expensive to cover. (And anyone who does sell
      it will make a lot of free money.) Nothing stops me from just
      announcing that I've cloned a copy of the bitcoin blockchain
      for BCM; the only way to avoid this abuse is for people to ignore
      it -- and that means not forcing short sellers to cover it.

<comment><USER5> Except your clone doesn't have miner support, community support, and get listed by major exchanges. I hate that people are acting like anyone can just go and make a fork for free money.

<comment><USER6> The point is, what's the threshold for "enough support"? Already for Bitcoin Cash, different exchanges have come to different conclusions on whether it's sufficiently supported to list on their exchange.

<comment><USER5> There is no threshold, it's clearly a gradient. Some exchanges want to list it, others don't. Certain exchanges listing it gives it more value than others, and if it's impossible to trade/spend, then the coin has 0 value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bit tangential, but I read an interesting theory this morning:

Because there is greatly reduced liquidity of BCH (most exchanges don't support, hard/slow to deposit into exchanges that do), supply of BCH is artificially limited at the moment. Proponents of BCH can trade their BTC for BCH at a rate greater than they believe it is worth to easily pump the value and 'market cap' (most market cap stats have no measure of this 'locked supply') to make BCH appear more popular than it is at a fraction of the price that would be necessary if selling was easy. This could sway more miners to choose to mine BCH over BTC, and in doing so, actually increase the real value of BCH.

From: [https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6ooorn/small_blockers_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6ooorn/small_blockers_are_segshitting_their_pants_over/dkj9mex/)

<comment><USER5> Yes. Price and market cap mean nothing when there is not sufficient liquidity. There was literally a 60% price spread between exchanges yesterday because arbitraging is incredibly difficult/impossible.

<comment><USER8> If arbitraging is impossible, can we really call it a single market? If I can't seek exchange A's BCH on exchange B, and vice versa, aren't we actually dealing with two instruments, rather than one? Looks to me like multiple different BCH IOU markets currently exist: one for each exchange.

This really has nothing to do with the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, since there's no connection between it and the tickers on the exchanges (you can't convert one to the other).

An analogy would be ten different commodity exchanges who all trade "steel" instruments, but neither allow you to either sell "steel" instruments and receive actual steel, or deposit actual steel and receive "steel" instruments. In this case, can we really say these exchanges are trading steel? Why would their steel prices ever reflect the actual price of steel, when the two markets are not connected in any way?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "There is no single obviously correct solution to these issues. Instead, each decision was sort of weird and contingent and reversible: not the immutable code of the blockchain, but just humans sitting around and trying to figure out which approach would cause the fewest complaints. In that, it's a bit like the Dole settlement process -- only instead of a neutral judge making decisions based on written contracts and established precedent, it's the people running each exchange making their own judgment calls."

This is what I'm always repeating about blockchains: they're very valuable _if and only if_ you cannot use the protection of contracts and laws when making a transation - for example because you're doing something illegal. In Every. Other. Case. systems based on trust, contracts and law (such as the banking system for example) are more efficient.

It doesn't mean that there isn't room for improving existing systems, just this is probably best done with regular servers and databases rather than a blockchain.

<comment><USER10> >they're very valuable if and only if you cannot use the protection [..]

I don't think that's entirely fair. They're also valuable to those who want to transfer money without ridiculous fees, excessive bureaucratic friction, and many mandatory middlemen.

What other system would allow you to instantly be able to accept payments without giving an exorbitant portion of your revenue?

<comment><USER11> But the "ridiculous fees, excessive bureaucratic friction, and many mandatory middlemen" are what buy you the protection. The fees from necessary middleman seem ridiculous when nothing goes wrong, but that is how Visa pays for a chargebacks or fraud protection. The governments bureaucratic friction might seem excessive, but that is how they ensure people are paying their taxes which goes to fund the court systems that help mediate disputed contracts.

<comment><USER12> Regulation can greatly improve things.

Within the Single Euro Payments Area, credit transfers (i.e. bank transfers) have been free for almost a decade and will be instant (<10s), effective November of this year. Another regulation, Payment Services Directive 2 will bring more open access to bank accounts as well, requiring banks to provide access to APIs.

Relatedly, the EU also limits interchange fees for credit and debit cards (to 0.2 and 0.3%, respectively). This is the reason why integrators like Stripe charge 1.4% for European and 2.9% for non-European cards.

Payments can be quick, simple and cheap. All you need is some competition, or regulation to favour end-users' interests.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but that comes at a price. It means that banks and financial institutions cannot make the same level of outrageous profits -- or at least not without finding different income streams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is hilarious watching people try to reinvent financial institutions without any knowledge of or respect for history.

<comment><USER15> Maybe I'm too "left wing", but if you ask me short selling, complex products and high frequency trading are among technological "improvements" that have led actual stock exchange to an ugly mess where biggest profits are made by "scamming" efficiently other users. Should regulators forbid (or tax more) some (or all) of this mechanisms markets will quickly resume to what they should be, places for people to invest money on companies that produce value.

So yeah pretty impressive to see that currencies based on unicorn blockchains of the future jump right into the old bandwagon of making up complex financial instruments that few people really understand on top of an experimental core concept.

<comment><USER16> I'd say you don't really understand what you're critiquing; you think those things are bad because you heard they were, from someone else who likely doesn't understand it either. There's absolutely nothing wrong with short selling or high frequency trading. Short sellers help keep prices fair and companies honest, HFT makes trading cheaper for everyone.

The markets are _worse_ without them, the market was worse before HFT which is the only thing new here, trades used to cost way more due to wall street middle men taking a big cut of every trade, far far bigger than HFT's take now. The only people who have a logically valid reason to hate HFT are the old school manual traders who were displaced by them and can no long make a living trading _chart patterns_. As late as the 70's and 80's there were people getting rich with strategies as stupid simple as buy the 10 day high and sell the 10 day low. Those people hate HFT, it took away their cash cow.

HFT is a sign of a healthy free market, better traders came in and offered to take your trades for far less money than the manual traders could, and took over; that's healthy competition, and they competed with each other driving the prices lower and lower until they hit the penny. Now they all fight over that penny to see who can be fastest because congress won't let them compete on price anymore (the sub penny rule) so they compete on speed instead.

<comment><USER17> > I'd say you don't really understand what you're critiquing

I'd say that you are assuming that optimizing for price is good, and presupposing how a market should be judged. Cheaper is good when it represents new innovation, less energy waste, and similar improvements. Cheaper can also mean cuts to wages and jobs, or a reduction in quality.

> There's absolutely nothing wrong with short selling

Leverage can be used for good, and sometimes it's used irresponsibly. As this thread's article demonstrates, short selling also creates systemic risk.

> trades used to cost way more due to wall street middle men taking a big cut > of every trade

Eliminating middlemen and/or reducing transaction overhead costs do not require high frequency. You're seeing effects of technological improvements and better regulations. The same improvements also benefit "slow" trading.

> chart patterns

> getting rich with strategies as stupid simple as buy the 10 day high and > sell the 10 day low

"Buy low, sell high." is the foundation of any successful trading strategy. HFT (when successful) is literally the same thing at much shorter time scales and improved heuristics. Machine learning can probably provide more detailed at a much finer-grain than a simple 10 day sliding window. Again, this does not require high speed.

> HFT is a sign of a healthy free market

It tells you little about the health of the market; HFT is a sign of a market uses short-term transaction ordering heavily when reconciling trades. It's entirely possible to have a healthy market batched trades that all execute at the same unified price.

<comment><USER18> "Leverage can be used for good, and sometimes it's used irresponsibly. As this thread's article demonstrates, short selling also creates systemic risk."

What critics of short selling are often unaware of is the role that short holdings play in dampening a market crash.

The act of unwinding your short position involves _buying the stock_ which means that for every tick downward in stock price there is new upward pressure on the price as buyers step in to cover their short position.

Were these constant, ready buyers not extant, market downturns can turn into precipitous crashes very quickly.

<comment><USER17> I should have used more specific language; I'm not trying to argue that short selling is "bad". The benefits - such as dampening a crashing market - <USER2> large enough to accommodate some risk. I'm primarily addressing the claim that, "There's absolutely nothing wrong with short selling". Ignoring small, acceptable risks is normalizing deviance[1].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _But BTC hasn 't really lost any value since the spinoff, still trading at > about $2,700. So just before the spinoff, if you had a bitcoin, you had a > bitcoin worth about $2,700. Now, you have a BTC worth about $2,700, and also > a BCH worth as much as $700. It's weird free money, if you owned bitcoins > yesterday._

Doesn't this throw up any red-flags to the btc/crypto apologist? This type of behavior is not how healthy markets work.

<comment><USER20> The market expected BTC to fall by about as much as BCH increased. It did not. The market was wrong by about ~25%. At least in that moment.

<comment><USER21> _The market expected BTC to fall by about as much as BCH increased._

How can that be measured?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really don't see how this fork is going to go down as anything other than a boondoggle. Right now the value of BCC is being propped up by having almost no way to actually sell it, but once an actual market opens I fully expect its price to crash hard.

<comment><USER23> This line of argument makes little sense. In the markets that do offer a way to buy and sell it, there's still a market setting the price. This idea that there will be totally different market forces at work once more people have access to the market is silly. I would not buy a $400 BCH today if I wasn't also willing to buy a $400 BCH when transaction volume is 1000x what it is now. If anything the fact that there's not an insane selling frenzy from those "lucky enough" to have access to their BCH on an exchange shows that there's a real demand for BCH as a currency.

There seems to be a lot of propaganda out there trying to marginalize and minimize Bitcoin Cash. The belief that literally everyone will instantly sell their BCH as soon as they can seems to be one of the messages of that propaganda rather than a reflection of reality.

<comment><USER24> People who want to buy BCH have relatively unrestricted access to the market since most of the exchanges have reopened BTC deposits. (Of course, whether they can withdraw that BCH is another story entirely.) Most people who want to sell do not have access since BCH deposits are either not available or require multiple days worth of confirmations. Can you see the problem here?

<comment><USER23> You're saying that people buying BCH right now aren't aware that there's a huge glut of supply waiting to flood the market, and aren't taking this into account in their buying decisions?

There is no need for anyone to have BCH in hand today, no reason for someone to value a BCH today more than a BCH in a week. If they thought that thousands of people selling BCH once they are able will lead to a drop in price, they would just buy at the lower price.

<comment><USER7> I think the average cryptocurrency trader is much lower-information than you are estimating.

There are hundreds of rubes who see "Bitcoin Cash" and think that because it suddenly jumped to the 3rd largest cryptocurrency by market cap, lots of people are talking about it, and its cheaper than Bitcoin, _this_ could be their chance to get the elusive short-term 3x+ crypto ROI. Many of these people have no concept of the locked supply.

I'd estimate that roughly 1/4 of buyers are informed BCH proponents, the other 3/4 are low-information get-rich-quick hopeful speculators.

<comment><USER24> Pretty much. BCH bulls who find out about the supply issue have been assuming that it can't be that much of a big problem, that most people who wanted to sell must've done so by now anyway, and of course there's no way to tell how much supply is actually locked up. BCH bears are mostly irrelevant to the price since, unless they expected it to be worth enough to justify locking their BTC in less reputable exchanges during the fork, they can't actually sell yet. Anyone who isn't following the online discussions closely probably simply doesn't know about this - the news articles I've seen haven't mentioned that issue, and it took many hours for this information to even percolate through the discussions. Claims like "3rd largest cryptocurrency by market cap" have been a lot more prominent everywhere. (Also, if you want an idea of what BCH supporters are thinking right now, the front page r/btc is currently a good place to look.)

<comment><USER25> There's thousands of people like me checking every minute if we can deposit bch to sell. There's millions waiting and I'm hoping to be the first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I always really enjoy Matt Levine's columns in Bloomberg. Very detailed and technical but always very carefully explained and readable.

<comment><USER27> You're probably subscribed to his newsletter then, it's the only newsletter in my inbox.

<comment><USER23> Good call. I've only ever read this and, interestingly, the semi-related Dole article, but they were both superb. Subscribed.

<comment><USER28> Don't miss out on the incredible "Arbitrage Discovered", one of the best things he has ever written: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-02-27/arbitrage...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-02-27/arbitrage- discovered)

<comment><USER29> I want to hear the epilogue to that story, but disappointingly the story seems to have gone quiet since it was reported.

Is Max-Hervé George still making 68% ROI per year at Aviva's expense? Did Aviva weasel out of it? Did they pay him off at a level he deemed acceptable? Did they go with the economical alternative of hiring a hit-man?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > To use an imperfect analogy from corporate finance, you could think of the > fork as a spinoff. For most of PayPal's life, it was owned by eBay. Holders > of the EBAY ticker owned the parent company eBay, which encompassed eBay > proper as well as PayPal. On the day of the spinoff, eBay stockholders > received, for each EBAY share they owned, one PYPL share. At the same time, > they got to keep their existing EBAY shares.

This is a misleading analogy, because EBAY holders can only be granted PYPL shared because EBAY _owned_ PYPL. So unless BCH was an existing entity before the fork, which was covered under BTC already, this analogy doesn't capture what happened here.

We're not talking about companies, were talking about distributed databases. Databases contain information, and can be copied, as opposed to a company. A better analogy would be someone scraping Twitter, making a copy called Twooter with all past tweets from Twitter, and then forking off from there with their own "twoots". In other words: it's a copy, not a stock split.

</comment><comment><USER30> Yeah if you were paying attention to the short vs long interest for BTC on Bitfinex right before the hard fork, BTC shorts went up like crazy and everyone thought ppl were hyper bearish on BCH. It was actually because ppl were pulling this funny business to get free BCH from Bitfinex.

<comment><USER5> Hedging against a clearly inflated asset is "funny business"?

<comment><USER31> The funny business is that people were creating a position guaranteed to pay out free money, assuming bitfinex actually followed their own policy.

<comment><USER5> That's not true, I performed calculations beforehand to decide whether it was more profitable to hold BTC in the margin wallet as opposed to other assets (which I knew would rise after the fork). The core question is whether altcoins would rise more than the price ratio of BCH/BTC. Alts went up 20% while BCH/BTC is ~0.15, meaning you were better off skipping the BCH altogether and just holding alts. The tradeoff is the increased risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This would have been so much more fun if the contracts were all smart contracts using Ethereum.

<comment><USER33> How would you set up a btc lending (for shorts) contact with eth?

<comment><USER34> If you created a 2-way pegged bitcoin ERC20 token, you could use something like EthLend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Excuse my ignorance, but this seems like the obvious solution to me: Distribute 1 BCH to each (actual) BTC holder on the exchange, completely ignore margin orders. So shorts don't owe and also longs aren't credited BCH.

Fair and no way to game. Why aren't exchanges doing this?

<comment><USER36> There's no such thing as "actual" BTC holder. All the BTCs in the exchange are fungible. A holder of BTC doesn't know if that BTC was loaned to someone else or not.

In a sense, what you suggest is exactly what the exchange did: They calculated the number of "actual" BTCs in the exchange, and split the appropriate number of BCHs evenly among everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> So I had some bitcoins at time of the fork. Do I have the other new coins as well? How can I spend, sell or buy them? Is there a multibit for bitcoin cash?

<comment><USER38> did you have it on a wallet online or in a wallet you created with a software locally? if its locally created, then good news. you should download Electron Cash and import the existing wallet and you shall see your BCCs.

<comment><USER39> Should I sell my BCC so I can collect the cash in case it fails? And then assume I will still have my BTC..

<comment><USER40> If you don't want to own BCC, and you don't expect it to rise in price, you should sell it.

The same can be said for everything you own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> So what's the explanation for the combined coins shooting up in value (if only for a little bit)?

<comment><USER5> BCH has no liquidity. It's price is largely irrelevant now. You can't just look at market caps.

<comment><USER42> That is only true if the market is unable to recognize it and price coins accordingly. Maybe the market is purely irrational, but it's certainly not a given.

I won't claim to know any more than you, mostly because ~80% of bitcoin use is in Asia and i know little about it. All of China and Japan and 2/3 of korean exchanges offer withdrawals or trading of BCH.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> There are shades of the 'what happens to my self if I could be teleported without the destruction of the original me?' philosophical conundrum.

</comment><comment><USER44> Good article. A blockchain can only protect systems that it encodes directly. And for the simple cash transactions that's easy enough. But humans can, have, and will devise all sorts of derivative financial instruments to amplify the utility of assets, and no mathematical system can encode all the arbitrary possibilities that implies into their structure beforehand.

Instead, we're back where we started where legalities and regulations matter and the reliability of your durable ledger is limited to the transactions it actually captures.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is veering off-topic, but is anyone else finding the Bloomberg menu nearly impossible to use/borderline broken? It activates on hover, but to actually click on a story you have to get past a secondary list of categories that also acts on hover (hiding the story you intended to click on). If you move the mouse diagonally instead, chances are you'll activate a different top-level menu. I felt like I had to dodge around menu elements just to be able to click on anything.

</comment><comment><USER46> > The way short selling works is that X borrows a share from Y and sells it to > Z. So Y owns one share, and Z owns one share, and X owes one share, and > everything balances out and there's only one share outstanding.

Is that really true? That would mean that both Y and Z should get dividend payment, which doesn't make sense. I always assumed that when X borrows one share from Y, the Y does not own that share any more.

<comment><USER46> @kgwgk well, the company obviously doesn't want to pay the dividend twice. So indeed they will only pay to Z. If X pays Y I presume that's just the terms of the lending agreement.

> What doesn't make sense is for both Y and Z to vote, for example.

Very good point. But it just confirms that it makes no sense to say that Y still owns a share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The article seemed to indicate a short squeeze condition without actually naming it that way, strangely enough. If so, it could get vicious for the short sellers. I am not invested in it, just thought to add my 2 cents

</comment><comment><USER48> Seems to me the problem is with the exchanges, not the bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER5> From the BCH Token Distribution Announcement:

All BTC wallet balances will receive BCH

They did not issue another post saying that this would not be the case and broke their distribution terms. Regardless of whether it was "free money" (it wasn't if you consider opportunity cost), they did not respect this simple and clear statement from their terms.

[https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/212](https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/212)

</comment><comment><USER49> Here's what people tried to pull off:

1\. Set up an account, borrow one bitcoin, sell it short, collect $2,700.

2\. Set up another account, buy a bitcoin, spend $2,700.

3\. When the fork happens, your long account ends up with +1 BTC and +0.8 BCH.

4\. Your short account ends up with -1 BTC and -0 BCH (because Bitfinex doesn't require you to come up with the BCH).

5\. Net, you have $0, 0 BTC and 0.8 BCH.

6\. The 0.8 BCH were worth as much as $560.

7\. That money was totally free.

<comment><USER5> Disclosure: Bitfinex robbed me of BCH according to the terms of the agreement, which was not amended until after the fact.

The money wasn't totally free. There was a huge opportunity cost to holding BTC at that time, and even having any in the margin wallet was a huge liability as opposed to funding your margin account with altcoins. Any serious trader knew that alts would rise immediately following the fork and Bitcoin would drop.

And regardless of whether it was free, their terms explicitly stated that those with a BTC balance in their wallets would receive BCH [1]. They did not issue a follow up post clarifying that hedging was strictly not allowed and thus robbed people. After how they handled both this and their hack, I urge/beg people not to use this exchange.

[1] [https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/212](https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/212)

<comment><USER50> 1\. Try to make free money in a totally unregulated market when an organization publishes a foolish policy.

2\. Get mad when said organization amends policy so you can't get your free money.

If you're gonna try to profit in the wild west it looks kind of _unseemly_ to get mad when your scheme doesn't go off quite as easily as you had hoped.

<comment><USER5> 1\. Organization implements foolish policy

2\. Thousands of people make trades according to foolish policy

3\. Organization changes terms of foolish policy, telling nobody.

4\. Organization then waits until after the fact to tell everyone that they have changed the policy, which dictate d the actions of a non trivial percentage of their customers.

If you're going to try to look like a legitimate exchange, this kind of thing looks pretty unseemly.

<comment><USER50> _If you 're going to try to look like a legitimate exchange, this kind of thing looks pretty unseemly._

Oh I agree! The whole thing has bitfinex looking a little foolish. It was step #1 that was the problem though. Steps 3 and 4 were them fixing it as best they could. Those parts weren't mistakes, it's just them keeping you from stealing Bitcoin Cash from their other customers.

<comment><USER5> I don't really see how it's stealing from their other customers when anyone with a nonzero BTC balance could have shorted BTC with BTC in their margin account.

Somehow I'm penalized for trying to maximize my profit based on the terms that were stated, even though that's what every single other person on the exchange is doing. Basically they chose to favor those who didn't understand the terms or what was going on in favor of those who did.

<comment><USER50> A bunch of people did what you did. That (before their correction that has you so riled up) lowered the coefficient used to distribute BCH from 0.8539 to 0.7757.

The BCH you attempted to acquire for no cost would have come from other customers in the form of that smaller coefficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Finex may have played this badly, but it was clearly stated in their statement on how they were handling the fork. If you didn't like their approach, all you had to do was move your coins off the exchange and split them yourself. It wasn't (too) difficult to do, and I say that as someone who isn't really technical, but can follow simple instructions.</comment>


Now Bing copies WolframAlpha, after Google. - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2013/12/12/microsoft-updates-bing-surface-online-courses-scientific-concepts-app-downloads-directly-results/

<comment><USER2> This is one thing that microsoft is very at.....COPY AND PASTE !!

<comment><AUTHOR> more and more companies seem to be doing this sort of search results now.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone working on a game? - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN,
I am wondering if there are any startups working on games? If so, what kind of games and what platform are you targeting?
We ourselves are working on a GTA-like game, which will be set in a different time, however. We are a very small team - currently 2 people. The biggest challenge is 3d modeling - we are working exclusively on our own tool to generate the game world semi-automatically. The only input will be a map and "skins" - and these skins will be modified by an artist. We hope to make the artist at least 10 times more productive than the norm - since we couldn't afford to hire 10 graphics guys :-), we need to make him super productive... <comment><USER2> As a hobby only at the moment, ultimately to give it away free/cheap, but it consumes my head so much I do ponder about other potential for it. One of those is its K-12 educational potential (in an alternate non-game mode) but I currently know next-to-nothing about the educational software market.

It's cross-platform OpenGL (C++ & Lua) and is basically a "unit-less" RTS with a planetary sciences bent. I'm enjoying every second of developing it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been toying around with a browser game based on Uplink: Hacker Elite (but as a multiplayer: think Uplink + ForumWarz + EVE as influence). But it's a pain :P</comment>


Google jumps into the website traffic comparison game with Google Trends for Websites - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/06/20/google-jumps-into-the-website-traffic-comparison-game-with-google-trends-for-websites/

<comment><USER2> [http://trends.google.com/websites?q=news.ycombinator.com&...](http://trends.google.com/websites?q=news.ycombinator.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

1\. There's no absolute number of visitors

2\. Also searched for "do if inside grill gets wet"

<comment><USER3> Re: 1.

If you login (top right), it'll show you the number of unique visitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Compete and Alexa, watch out. The Trends data may not be complete, but there's still enough there to make comparisons with Compete and Alexa.</comment>


Ask HN: So how bout those Donald trump YouTube ads? - <AUTHOR> Why does alphabet choose to run them, plastered over the front page of youtube? <comment><USER2> I think it's just about money. You pay and get what you pay for.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe they want to be on the winning side this time (just joking). My guess is that the trump campaign is spending on ads on YouTube, while the Biden campaign isn't. There seems to be a lot of mashups and videos comparing statements of Biden now and years ago. I get the impression the general tone of most of the videos on YouTube are negative for Biden, and probably not the best place to spend ad money. Especially considering that YouTube will start recommending political videos trying to get click rage engagement going on.

I made the mistake during the last election clicking on a promoted video about Hillary and my god I had to spend weeks clicking "don't recommend this channel" in my feed. YouTube will shove political video recommendation down your throat. I don't like political commentary regardless of what side of the ideological spectrum it comes from.

<comment><AUTHOR> They were on the winning side last time too. Got investigated by Congress and testified on C-SPAN and everything.

</comment></comment><comment> non-entity I'm actually very curious about this too. I dont often view political content on YouTube or really other sites (although I do discuss it a good bit on various sites and chat applications), yet whenever I open the YouTube app I my phone, there's a Trump ad pinned to the top or one before a video. All other ads are closer related to my actual search history.

For comparison other streaming apps I use tend to show me a mix of Trump/Biden ads, but YouTube seems to show exclusively Trump ones.

<comment><USER4> It's a great strategy.

My assumption is that Trumps team is attempting to leverage the laxness of YouTube's platform because of the negative attention and increased scrutiny that Facebook has been under.

They are outspending on a platform that will not correct or proof their messaging.

Trump's digital team is extremely good at optimizing for conversions in a way that Obama's team was as well.

Trump's team uses plain English with simple call-to-actions focused on emotion such as FEAR. Dems language is much more convoluted and some would say elitist.

It remains to be seen whether stoking FEAR is as powerful a tool as HOPE is which to a certain degree is the commonality between their past campaigns:

* Obama was hope for a better future

* Trump's first campaign was hope for a return to "values" of the past</comment></comment>


Google rebrand experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.behance.net/gallery/Google-Rebrand/10881655

<comment><USER2> That's not a rebrand. It's a slight variant of the logo using the colors and visual language that have already been painstakingly specified by Google's designers.

</comment><comment><USER3> "LOOKS AWESOME!" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406898](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406898)

</comment><comment><USER4> The result ends up communicating "infinity" not "global". And there's nothing infinite about Google, I'd say.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lovely logo redesign, makes Google feel like a younger company. I doubt they'd ever do it this drastically, but you never know.

I assume these are slides from a talk - would've liked to have some text accompanying them for some context.

<comment><USER6> I actually think that if redesign will ever happen, it will be even more drastic. I think Google is missing a logo next to current logotype. Current branding doesn't work very well on hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uh. How about no. At this point, Google _is_ Catrull. Those g's are instantly recognisable. This logo is far too geometric. It looks too techy, too cold.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles4/205169/projects/108816...](http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles4/205169/projects/10881655/6d8fc90ddc6794088760a73a314ff256.png)

The original myTouch 3G was my favorite phone of all time. It's really sad that trackballs have gone out of style. At the time it felt like having a trackball was saying the touchscreen experience must not be that good, I suppose. Even though this phone was very plastic, it felt cheap but not too cheap. Just thinking about this phone makes me want to buy one and install a JB rom on it but I'm guessing the experience would be pretty bad. Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER9> That new OO looks way, way too much like Google are now owned by Mastercard.

<comment><USER10> I hate the kerning. The OO just doesn't fit with the rest of the logo in the slightest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That is some poor typography. Although, I do like that the designer bothered put his new logo on the pillows in the last shot [1] Still, doesn't save the way the logo is fighting with that infinity concept.

[1][http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles4/205169/projects/108816...](http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles4/205169/projects/10881655/fdc07a462611e1881899089c72ac639a.png)

</comment><comment><USER12> The only redeeming factor of this particular branding excessive is that the author rendered the logo in a diverse range of situations.

While mostly just fun, these types of branding projects bring to mind the question of how often to modern branding. If you evolve your branding using the latest design trends, does is damage the long term image and _recognizability_ of the brand?

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks a bit too similar to Opscode's logo for my taste:

[http://www.juliandunn.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/opscode...](http://www.juliandunn.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/opscode.png)

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks like the same Identity to me. just a redesign of the logo. Bad timing for him/her since Google recently released a simplified version that looks better.

</comment><comment><USER15> I thought it was nice.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is good work. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER17> The logo looks bad in small sizes - two o's are jammed together to much comparing to the rest of the letters. If the author wants to play with "infinity" symbol, the closer distance between two letters must be visually compensated somehow. Either the rest of the letters must be jammed in the same way, or these o's should be widened, or linked not that closely.

And yes, it's not a full rebranding. It's only a logo.

</comment><comment><USER18> I kept reading it as "Gcogle" \- not great.</comment>


Prefer USC/GC/H1b non Indians - <AUTHOR> https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Matrix7i/jobs/Java-Full-Stack-Developer-304eae12fc40ceb7?q=Java <comment><USER2> Is it just me or does Sumathi Dot Kanthan (the poster) sound Indian?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> That's a little bit messed up.</comment>


Ask HN: Are websites hosted via Github pages down? - <AUTHOR>

http://tom.preston-werner.com/ seems to be down. https://status.github.com/ reports everything operational. <comment><USER2> Nope, all my gh-pages are up. See [http://s4a.cat/](http://s4a.cat/) for example.</comment>


Israel Bars Palestinians from Exporting Produce via Jordan - <AUTHOR> https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-to-bar-palestinians-from-exporting-produce-via-jordan-as-trade-war-escalates-1.8506459 <comment><USER2> How's this relevant for HN?

<comment><USER3> It's interesting, certainly doesn't fall into the " If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."-category.

Why would this not be relevant for HN?

<comment><USER2> It's some kind of obscure internal agricultural export dispute. Perhaps you can explain why that's interesting..

<comment><USER3> Obscure international agricultural export dispute? I don't know about you, but that sounds very HN to me.

I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but your choice of words (internal) seems to hint at why you might not want to see this discussed.

<comment><USER2> If this dispute was between any other peoples it wouldn't be here at all. Try to remember the last time something between Tibet and China being discussed here.

<comment><USER3> Oh fuck off, that's a regular topic on HN (as is the plight of the Uyghurs). You can operate the search yourself and confirm this.

What are you hinting at anyway? Just spit it out.

>I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but your choice of words (internal) seems to hint at why you might not want to see this discussed.

Was I right or not?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blitab: World's first tactile tablet is 'iPad for the blind' - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/blitab-worlds-first-tactile-tablet-ipad-blind-1508042

<comment><USER2> As a blind programmer I would grab one of these if I could. I don't use braille much when programming because of the one line limitation. I now use it for looking at complex expressions but something like this could make a big difference with being able to view indentation for if statements and loops.</comment>