Fast, Bump-Allocated Virtual Doms with Rust and Wasm - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/fast-bump-allocated-virtual-doms-with-rust-and-wasm/ <comment><USER2> How exciting. One of the great things about React is that it's just as much a pattern as a library, and with Rust macros and v-dom it should be rather easy to build something similar to JSX in Rust (with the proper Rust-isms of course). Can't wait for Rust to rule the web.

<comment><USER3> I'm watching [https://github.com/bodil/typed- html](https://github.com/bodil/typed-html) personally; not just JSX, but statically typed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _> Virtual DOM libraries provide a declarative interface to the Web's imperative DOM._

I'm not sure what this means. DOM is an object model for HTML. It is mutable, but HTML itself is definitely declarative.

Which brings up an interesting question. Why are DOM-diffs something that is done by userland libraries when it can and probably should be done by the browser itself?

<comment><USER5> Because virtual DOM is not the only way to achieve efficient DOM updates, and even within the concept of virtual DOM there could be many different ways to achieve efficient diffing (e.g. React vs Snabbdom). There is nothing special about a particular virtual DOM spec to deserve a place in web standards.

<comment><USER6> The things a VDOM get you is a simpler interface than the browser DOM, with an often faster comparison than the browser actually provides. There have been significant real browser DOM improvements since React came out, but I'm pretty sure an optimized VDOM in WASM could be faster because of issues of interaction with the real/full browser DOM. There are also side effects wrt the full/real DOM in practice.

I agree though, nothing that requires a place in web standards at all.

<comment><USER5> Well... faster than what exactly? You _have_ to do the virtual DOM pattern (generating new DOM state and then diffing with old state) with _virtual_ elements. You can't compare proper virtual dom to using _real_ DOM elements instead of virtual ones in a virtual dom pattern, it wouldn't make any sense.

But there are other non-virtual-DOM ways to manage DOM state efficiently and in a maintainable manner. For example, my own library uses Observables to drive precise DOM updates and works with trees holding _real_ (not virtual) DOM elements, so it doesn't need to do any diffing at all: [https://github.com/raquo/Laminar](https://github.com/raquo/Laminar)

I don't think it's a given which of these techniques would be faster, it depends heavily on the particular use case and the implementation of diffing (for virtual DOM) and Observables (for my pattern). If both are well optimized I'd expect virtual DOM to lose in a lot of cases.

<comment><USER6> Like I said, _could_ , it probably depends on actual use... DOM navigation for read or update can be optimized, but depending on how it is done may not work as well. React itself is moving towards diffing against the browsers real DOM iirc. Browsers have gotten a lot better than in the past. That said, actually comparing each node for updates against large trees may be more costly than updating and diffing against a partial abstraction.

<comment><USER5> What I'm saying is outside of the virtual DOM paradigm you might not need to diff any elements at all, real or virtual, and so you wouldn't care about the performance of DOM reads, as you're not doing them.

Then it becomes a matter of DOM write performance, but that is the same for everyone assuming the native DOM API commands issued by the libraries are the same, which is a more or less reasonable assumption for well optimized libraries even if they use different paradigms to calculate what those commands should be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, I was thinking web developers, rather than using rust and wasm directly, would first get the benefits when the libraries they use start moving the heavy duty parts to it. Can't wait to see if someone uses this for building a react-like framework.

<comment><USER3> The Rust Wasm working group agrees, and that's why they've been pursuing a strategy of building libraries, rather than full front-end frameworks. There are some people who are doing that, and now that the "build a library in wasm" story is going pretty well, there are some plans to move into that space too ([https://rustwasm.github.io/2019/03/12/lets-build-gloo- togeth...](https://rustwasm.github.io/2019/03/12/lets-build-gloo- together.html)). But almost all of the previous work has been for libraries.

<comment><USER8> I am hopeful for the other half to land as well - heres to hoping that something like piet and druid results in a completely rust based Application delivery platform that ships in the browser.

<comment><USER9> Could you elaborate on what Piet and Druid are, perhaps with a few links? I assume you don't mean the esolang[0].

[0] [https://esolangs.org/wiki/Piet](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Piet)

<comment><USER8> Sure, sorry about the initial omissions.

[https://github.com/xi-editor/druid](https://github.com/xi-editor/druid)

[https://github.com/linebender/piet](https://github.com/linebender/piet)

<comment><USER9> Thanks! Looks very interesting, going to watch the video about Druid linked in the README.MD later[0].

And no worries, it's very easy to forget not everyone is introduced!

Anyway, to actually engage with your point: I can see the appeal of an all- Rust framework: good typing system + high performance (both in speed and low memory use, ideally) sounds fantastic!

So out of curiosity: how do you think hot swapping would be handled? I'm asking this who has not dived into Rust at all and only observed it with interest from a distance.

For starters, I understand Rust has fairly slow compilation times, no? Or is that only true for optimized code and do we have fast debug options?

Similarly, hot swapping requires maintaining state. With JS that's not too difficult because you don't worry about memory layout: as long as the high- level structure and names are the same the code works fine (it just kills the JIT optimizations).

With WASM, that goes out the window: add or remove a field to your struct and all offsets change. Rust may guarantee no memory leaks, but that is not the same as guaranteeing that a snapshot of the memory state of one Rust program works on a different one.

I guess some kind of "export to/import from JavaScript based representation" glue code that runs every hot reload could work, but that sounds like it could really freeze the browser when hot-reloading the big frameworks.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YTfxresvS8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YTfxresvS8) would be funny if I forgot to include links myself at this point :p

<comment><USER8> Had to look up hot swapping, to be honest I dont think the experience will be as good as it would be for dynamic languages like Dart / Javascript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Firstly, congrats on shipping a virtual DOM lib in WASM. Hopefully, frameworks intent on using a V-DOM will greatly benefit from this.

Having said that, is a V-DOM required in 2019, if DOM updates are optimally batched, like in FastDom ( [https://github.com/wilsonpage/fastdom](https://github.com/wilsonpage/fastdom) ). Decades of optimizing browser internals would surely account for not trashing the DOM, if updated optimally. So, is it required?

<comment><USER11> It's never been required — and is usually substantially slower – but a virtualdom may be worth the overhead because it avoids the need to organize those updates. Most cases aren't performance sensitive to the point where that's the deciding factor in a decision.

<comment><USER12> It appears lit-html is using a method that keeps updates declarative. [https://lit-html.polymer-project.org/](https://lit-html.polymer-project.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The benchmark has some old versions of Angular (2) and the legacy AngularJS (1.x) - how do the benchmarks look with a more recent version (v7)?

<comment><USER14> The post notes that they had issues with recent versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems memory fragmentation can occur, rather easily, if you hold onto a few of them.

> _The disadvantage of bump allocation is that there is no general way to > deallocate individual objects and reclaim their memory regions while other > objects are still in use._

<comment><USER16> The use case in the article does not hold onto a few of them, though- it holds on to exactly two at any time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why virtual DOM is not a part of browser APIs is anyone's guess at this point.

<comment><USER18> It is! They call it the DOM, for short.

<comment><USER19> Uh no, actually virtual DOM would be a great addition to the browser. What is there is an imperative api, the big win of virtual DOM is the specification of the UI is the specification of all possible updates to the ui in an efficient manner. It would be nice for the browser to include an api method that takes VDOM data-structure, diffs it and applies the changes in native land vs implementing this in user land.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The benchmark leaves me wondering if this was worth it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Could this be used in something like Cloudflare Workers to enable server-side rendering?

</comment><comment><USER22> Bump allocation sounds a lot like heap allocation. Is a "bump" a small heap?

<comment><USER3> Bump allocation is a strategy for building an allocator; where that allocator's memory is is irrelevant to the algorithm itself. Most of the time, that is the heap, but you could write an allocator that takes a bunch of stack memory and hands it out too.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who will buy Dropbox? - <AUTHOR> Any theories or predictions, or do you think they won't be bought? Will they IPO or fail, then? <comment><USER2> I think they'll IPO. Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon are already way invested in their own cloud storage platforms to change their infrastructure and nobody else has the cash.

<comment><USER3> You have forgotten about IBM, Oracle and SalesForce

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apple should buy. Apple has no foot in cloud services. They should get rid of iCloud and buy Dropbox. This will give Apple some ground in the cloud services

<comment><USER5> You know iCloud does a heck of a lot more than Dropbox does, right?

<comment><USER6> I never used iCloud. How does it compare to Dropbox?

<comment><USER5> That's kind of like asking how does Office compare to WordPad or how does Debian compare to Firefox.

The only part that compares really is iCloud Drive. It _could_ be improved (what can't?) e.g. it's not always super fast to show updates on other devices, but honestly it's not enough of an issue for me to use another storage solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Twitter did take out 3.5 billion for investing, but I don't see any useful applications for it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Microsoft? (But I have no clue.)

</comment><comment><USER9> Apple? They have the cash</comment>


How  To Manage App Development On The Android Platform Without Going Nuts - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/07/5-ways-to-manage-app-development-on-the-android-platform-without-going-nuts/

<comment><USER2> Step 1: Just give up on making your app run on every version of Android ever released. Unless you are the kind of person who tests web apps in Netscape and IE5, there is no reason to test on devices running Android 2.3 or earlier.

Step 2: Buy actual devices to test your app with, and test well. If you can't justify the money or time it would take to support a particular device (e.g. because only two of your users have it), then don't support it.

Step 3: Use the application manifest's compatibility features to prevent the Play store from showing your app to users running with unsupported devices. There is unfortunately no way to whitelist individual device models, but you can get pretty close by combining properties like the minimum SDK or required device features.

Step 4: Sit back and laugh at your competitors bending over backwards to fix a intermittent crash found only on a particular phone model (sold in 2009 by an out-of-business Chinese company) running a modified Cyanogenmod 7.

<comment><USER3> >> there is no reason to test on devices running Android 2.3 or earlier

Umm, not sure I buy this. Per article above (see Google dashboard image), over 55% of Android devices currently use Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and about 13% use Android 2.2 (Froyo). Your testing plan leaves behind 68% of the Android userbase -- which is kinda huge.

FYI, when I build apps for my clients I tend to support Android 2.2 and above.

>> Use the application manifest's compatibility features to prevent the Play store from showing your app to users running with unsupported devices

There can be unintended consequences to this -- such as for example greatly impairing your marketing message.

Nowhere is that clearer than at a launch event. Say your app is ready to launch and you want to hold an onsite launch event. Based on your Play store exclusions, 68% of the people in the audience will have an unsupported device. Now for the fun part: on an unsupported device, your app simply does not appear in the Play store listings! Zero, zilch, nada, no results -- it's like your app does not even exist to those users. You now have a frustrated event audience, with all enthusiasm drowned out by the cries of people asking you why they can't find your app in the store. Not good.

<comment><USER2> And how many users of those budget phones even realize that apps exist, or will be willing to buy yours?

<comment><USER3> >> And how many users of those budget phones even realize that apps exist, or will be willing to buy yours?

You make some significant assumptions here:

1\. Android 2.3 is only found on budget devices, and

2\. Budget device users do not purchase apps.

I don't have any data on assumption #2, but I can tell you that there are a lot of high end phones from 1 year to 1.5 years ago which are not getting the update to ICS / Jellybean. I happen to own such a device -- the TMobile G2x. Dual core, all around powerful hardware -- more than capable to run ICS and Jellybean. Much better hardware than Nexus S, which currently has ICS / Jellybean. But the G2x manufacturer (LG) will not update the phone to ICS and everyone is stuck with Gingerbread on this high end phone. So Android 2.3 does not automatically imply cheap phone.

<comment><USER4> and is it not easy to update the OS yourself? or is it one of those phones that can't be updated unless the manufacturer somehow "authorizes" the update?

<comment><USER3> The main problem with building a custom ROM for the G2x is that NVIDIA will not release the Tegra2 GPU drivers to the community. So unless LG releases an official ICS version, there is no way for third party devs to get their hands on the custom driver. There are already ICS custom ROMs without GPU graphics acceleration for the G2x, and they don't work well. For example, when trying to use the browser, the screen will flicker and sometimes go black.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This post gives me the same feeling as when my CEO/manager with little tech knowledge sends me links with subject lines like, "Hey this sounds useful, check it out."</comment>


Calacanis calls time on the internet 'me-toos' - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/16/internet-startups

<comment><USER2> Money quote: "This is the first time I've ever said this to anybody, this is an exclusive: this will be my last company. I'm not going to do another company after this."

I'm not a giant fan of Mahalo -- don't hate it or anything, but I don't really believe in it either. Be interested to see how long Calacanis sticks to his word if it goes under.

<comment><USER3> What he means is that he's going to push Mahalo into a big enough exit so that he never has to work again.

<comment><USER4> I first read about Calacanis in a book called DIgital Hustlers (remaindered) and he used to run a newsletter in New York, which made him rich. Then he coasted for a few years, and he made millions on his last sale to AOL. He could just retire now, it seems from this interview.

I love scrappy 'operators' who reinvent themselves time after time to the jeers of those without an understanding of enterpreneurship. I don't get it either, I admit.

Best part of Digital Hustlers - a several-month, million-dollar party in New York ('Silicon Alley') which lasted right up to the bust.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Am I the only one that doesn't really like async/await syntax? - <AUTHOR> I actually prefer `.map`-able or `.then`-able constructs (i.e. Promise/Future/Deferred/Optional/Either though they're all slightly different), and don't often mind putting all my error handling in one place.
As long as whatever language it is has an ergonomic errors-as-values, and you return the proper types, catching all the errors in one place is actually not so bad, you just match (if the language supports it) or `switch` on the error you got and do what's necessary... async/await on the other hand just seems like a fancy way to put litter my code with try/catch and the nested-and-to-the-right logic that comes with it in trivial cases (where it doesn't make immediate sense to factor out into another function).
I think `.then`-able/`.map`-able code also encourages you to factor out lengthy chained functions into composable pieces, since a `.then(... lots of code ...)` looks pretty bad very quickly.
To help make my biases a bit clearer, I am the kind of person that prefers `>>=` (pronounced "bind") to `do` notation in Haskell, for similar reasons, and rust's ? operator is one of the best syntactic innovations I've seen, because it strikes a nice middle ground IMO. <comment><USER2> You're not the only one.

In Rust, it's more significant than in GC'd languages, or ones that don't validate pointers. You cannot borrow across these kinds of method chains, but you can across await points. That's the major reason we're introducing it: [http://aturon.github.io/2018/04/24/async- borrowing/](http://aturon.github.io/2018/04/24/async-borrowing/)</comment>


Ask HN: Best framework to develop a web API - <AUTHOR>

I just received a task of building a web based stock market simulator. I am only supposed to write the algorithms and expose them as an API.(web based, something like RESTful ). My client will then just hand this over to people who will develop good looking front-end, iPhone, blackberry apps and so on for it.
This is the first time I am building an API as such but I have done a lot of web programming in PHP and Python.
I am wondering which would be the best framework to build such an API. Or should I build the business logic in one and expose it to the rest of the world in something lightweight such as NodeJS ?
Please suggest me frameworks and basic approaches. Even links to pointers will be highly appreciated. <comment><USER2> You can build an API in any common language. Since you are already comfortable in PHP or Python, your time will be best spent using one of those languages. I'm guessing your client will be expecting the product some time soon. =)

I would recommend structuring it as a RESTful web service though.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like Sinatra (Ruby) for APIs. If the URL structure needs more complexity, Rails is better, but the downside is that you're getting a lot more than what you might need.

If I were asked to do one in Python, I'd use Flask.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would suggest Ruby on Rails.

I'm in the process of developing an accurate blackjack simulator with RoR.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can rails handle HTTP PUT , DELETE requests with equal ease the way it does POST and GET ?

<comment><USER2> Yes. Example of how the code could look in RoR:

[http://davidwparker.com/2010/03/09/api-in-rails-respond- to-a...](http://davidwparker.com/2010/03/09/api-in-rails-respond-to-and- respond-with/)</comment></comment></comment>


Sleep Deprived Driving - <AUTHOR> https://vastranet.com/illegal-to-drive-drowsy/ <comment><AUTHOR> Our team is going to combat this problem without invasive camera based systems. We specialize in fabrics, sensors & computing. Sure, you can call us another ECG based startup for now. Feel free to share thoughts, concerns or general feedback!

<comment><USER2> Do you have any more details on how this technology is supposed to classify drowsiness?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can wait and check out our demo video this weekend! If you have specific domain questions feel free to contact us.</comment></comment></comment>


Dr. J. Donald Millar, 81, Dies; Led CDC Mission That Helped Eradicate Smallpox - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/health/dr-j-donald-millar-who-led-cdc-mission-that-helped-eradicate-smallpox-dies-at-81.html

<comment><USER2> > From 1880 to 1980, it killed a half-billion people worldwide.

And it caused 1/3 of all blindness. Eradicating smallpox is one of the greatest human achievements in protecting human life and health. I wish it was more celebrated and its significance more well-known. Smallpox Eradication Day should be a national holiday. Humans, by human hands, killed only HALF as many people as smallpox in the 20th century (that includes WWI, WWII, Russian purges, Great Leap Forward, etc.) Edward Jenner, who developed the smallpox vaccine, Donald Millar and the others who lead the eradication fight are truly among humanity's greatest heroes.

<comment> david-given I suppose the fact that smallpox has been so utterly forgotten merely highlights what a triumph the eradication was, but yeah, I agree with everything you said. Eradication of smallpox is the greatest achievement of the modern age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Next up to be eradicated: guinea worm. That program may be Jimmy Carter's greatest contribution to the world:

[http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html](http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html)

<comment><USER4> I have this dream that we could throw a huge party that day.

<comment><USER3> With gummi worms!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was certainly at the tail end of smallpox vaccinations in the US (1972). Had a big scar on my upper left arm well in to my 30s. Reading up, they were stopped in 1972 altogether, and from what my mom told me, it was optional at that point, but the doctor she saw was a fairly older and more conservative chap who had a "better safe than sorry" attitude, so vaccinated I became.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting article about an little-known man who was a key figure in this great achievement.

[http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/the-best-person-who-ever- li...](http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/the-best-person-who-ever-lived.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> IIRC smallpox was a major cause of the original inhabitants of the Americas being almost destroyed entirely.

How are we doing with other old diseases? Any chance we'll be rid of polio, malaria, etc?

<comment><USER8> Bill Gates is hoping for Polio to be eradicated by 2020 and Malaria within 20-30 years. Also, there's an HIV "vaccine" of sorts but requires taking a pill every day for life (the last I read).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Related (sic) talk by Larry, aptly named, Brilliant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhiHf84P9c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhiHf84P9c)</comment>


How recruiters look at your resume - <AUTHOR> http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/11/how-recruiters-look-at-your-resume/

<comment><USER2> This is blogspam/aggregation for [http://blog.theladders.com/ux/you-only- get-6-seconds-of-fame...](http://blog.theladders.com/ux/you-only- get-6-seconds-of-fame-make-it-count/) which is a blog post of what appears to be a scam: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2534712>

Move along.</comment>


This is what the world looks like if you scale countries by population - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/RfAMZEL

<comment><USER2> The origin of the map is [http://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/2sm2vj/world_popula...](http://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/2sm2vj/world_population_map_2015_7088_x_3008_oc/)</comment>


Show HN: Shoutable – The app for everyday grand gestures - <AUTHOR> https://shoutable.app <comment><USER2> Interesting idea. Are you trying to tap into the same psychological drive or whatever that has people buy a message on the big screen at sporting events? Do you have a "Will you marry me?" option? :)

It would be nice to see more of the available designs and functionality without having to download the app. Like do I need to have my phone out to prompt the message on the screen to appear? Or can I do it real sneaky-like with my phone in my pocket and nudge my fiance to look at the screen to see the "Will you marry me?" message? In general I guess as a potential customer it seems weird that the promo pictures all have the person's phone out showing the same thing as the screen. Like it takes the magic away or something, I dunno.

I think a video that pulls at heartstrings would help. Also being able to see all current locations on the website would be nice. Regardless it seems pretty impressive that you have random screens spattered throughout NYC.

I'm more technical but a lower level "how it works" (bluetooth, etc.) would be nice, address privacy concerns, etc.

Just some random internet feedback for you, good luck!

EDIT: Read the app store description which answers some questions.

<comment><USER3> Hi there! I lead the engineering team behind Shoutable.

Thanks for the feedback! We do have some videos of reactions on Instagram if you want to check them out. Also, we have a bunch of proposal templates! I'd love to see videos and photos of people using them

Currently, you do need to open the app to take over the screen, but you can go through the whole design and purchase flow beforehand, and just have it ready to post sneakily.

Happy to answer some technical/privacy questions too - what would you like to know? Upfront, I'll say there is no direct communication between the phone and the kiosk (over bluetooth or anything like that). The app and kiosk both talk to shared backend services.</comment></comment>


'Rewilding' process could soon return wolves to Scotland - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33017511 <comment><USER2> Britain and Japan, both island nations where anything remotely threatening was wiped out long ago. The largest predator in Japan is the salamander. A meter- long specimen will make news.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/1096...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10965843/Giant- salamander-discovered-on-walk-to-school-in-Japan.html)

What's the largest predator in Britain? The badger? The fox? Or that housecat everyone thought was a lion.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- essex-19397686](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-19397686)

Talk to anyone in the pacific northwest. If you take only the slightest precautions you have nothing to fear from the wolves, cougars and bears. You are far more likely to be eaten by a fellow human. You are more likely to be killed by deer. They are already all over Britain. So the wolves will in all probability reduce the number of animal-related deaths.

[http://www.therichest.com/animals/top-10-animals-that- kill-h...](http://www.therichest.com/animals/top-10-animals-that-kill-humans/)

<comment><USER3> > Talk to anyone in the pacific northwest. If you take only the slightest > precautions you have nothing to fear from the wolves, cougars and bears.

I lived in Washington for six years, and I can say that's simply not true. Protecting yourself from predators involves significant work. It's just that everyone is used to it. When camping, you have to store food and toiletries in bear canisters. You have to check for reports of bear activity. You carry bear spray. Some even carry a gun. Despite these preparations, there's the constant anxiety of knowing you might encounter a predator. It really sours the outdoor experience.

> So the wolves will in all probability reduce the number of animal-related > deaths.

Wolves aren't the only way to cull the deer population.

When it comes to reintroducing wolves, everyone agrees the risk to humans is low. Almost nobody is going to be killed by wolves. But that argument proves too much. Almost nobody falls victim to serial killers. We still try to reduce the number of serial killers to zero.

<comment><USER4> > It really sours the outdoor experience.

Man, this is going to come off as snarky, but that _is_ the outdoor experience. Put your food up, if not for the bears you're more than likely not going to see, then for the raccoons you most likely will. Bear spray? Not unless I'm somewhere that might have grizzlies, and even then the stuff is a last resort when all other precautions have failed (read the label about the usage range: close enough that you're about to be mauled). I've never looked up reports of bear activity; I assume they're always out there.

"Might encounter a predator", but overwhelming odds are you wont. Fifteen years of tromping around the woods of WA, trail running and hiking, I've seen one brown bear that wanted nothing to do with me. I'm sure I have more to worry about from my fellow drivers on the way to the trailhead than I do from bears and wolves.

We all have our personal worries, and one should pack accordingly. Non-human predators are low in my list of things I pack for. YMMV.

<comment><USER5> I wish I knew what this bear was thinking:

[http://www.mtexpress.com/news/environment/bear-grabs- sleepin...](http://www.mtexpress.com/news/environment/bear-grabs-sleeping- hunter/article_a5660592-6de9-11e5-a3e2-2fb6af5d58bd.html)

"A Boise hunter sustained minor wounds when a black bear grabbed him by the head while he was sleeping in the open along the Middle Fork of the Salmon River last week."

"He said that before the men went to sleep on the night of the attack, they had stowed all their food in a box on their raft."

"Jon Rachael, state wildlife manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said unprovoked attacks by black bears are rare, and it's impossible to say what motivated this one. He guessed that either the bear had become conditioned to people by finding food around them or perhaps was just curious, and grabbed Vouch's head to see what it was."

<comment><USER4> > I wish I knew what this bear was thinking

I dunno, put yourself in the bear's place. I think the wildlife manager might be right: the bear was wondering what the heck it was, or maybe even "I wonder if I can eat this". Most humans Mr. or Mrs. Bear encounters are up and moving, probably making noise, maybe even spraying stuff at them (be it bear spray or bullets). This one is just lying there on the ground, presenting a fine opportunity for investigation. Or maybe I'm anthropomophising the bear too much. I'm with you: I do wish I could spend ten seconds inside his little bear brain to see what was motivating him.

One thing I do know is that, despite not giving bear attacks much consideration when I'm out and about, I would never, ever, ever sleep in the open if there might be bears about, especially next to something called the _Salmon_ River. Sure, a tent ain't going to do crap to keep a motivated bear out. But a little "out of sight, out of mind" can go a long way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is a HN submission ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8448929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8448929)) for the _How Wolves Change Rivers_ video that is mentioned in this article. (It was posted exactly a year ago, a coincidental anniversary of the topic here on HN).

There are some good discussions and great links to related content including the TED talk on 'rewilding' by George Monbiot who narrates the _How Wolves Change Rivers_ video.

<comment><USER7> The article goes on to say:

> Yet David Mech, a biologist who has worked extensively in Yellowstone, > advises that such simple narrative arcs are hard to find in something as > messy as an ecosystem. Mech does not discount all of Monbiot's claims, but > cautions that as much harm could come to the wolf from being marketed as the > poster boy of the environmental movement as it did in the era when it was > hated and feared.

One of the narratives in a re-wilding context is that human are not part of the "wild." Yet in post-glacial areas like Scotland and Yellowstone, where humans arrived shortly after the ice melted, the ecosystem developed with humans as one of the apex predators.

We see this in Australia, for example at [http://climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/pdf/pdfFile...](http://climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/pdf/pdfFiles/contribution%2013.pdf) :

> For thousands of years, desert Aborigines have set fire to the arid savanna, > creating an environmental patchwork to which much of the desert plant and > animals are specifically adapted. Where Aborigines have been removed from > their lands, the desert patchwork has often been obliterated with > devastatingly large wildfires.

Humans are left out of the rewilding equation because I think it's drawing from a romantic tradition of what the wild is supposed to be.

<comment><USER8> To be fair, "humans" covers quite different ground when you're talking about on the one hand, spear hunters and shifting-cultivation agriculturists, and on the other, industrial agribusiness, roads and concrete.

<comment><USER7> You're right. Somewhere in my edits I dropped out the important term "Neolithic". ... Though perhaps 'Stone Age' would be more appropriate given the long time that humans were an apex species.

<comment><USER8> It's probably a bit messy, because we started deforestation in the mesolithic I think, and we had an uneasy standoff with megafaunal predators well into the iron age.

From Wikipedia: With the advent of agriculture, larger areas began to be deforested, and fire became the prime tool to clear land for crops. In Europe there is little solid evidence before 7000 BC. Mesolithic foragers used fire to create openings for red deer and wild boar. In Great Britain, shade- tolerant species such as oak and ash are replaced in the pollen record by hazels, brambles, grasses and nettles. Removal of the forests led to decreased transpiration, resulting in the formation of upland peat bogs. Widespread decrease in elm pollen across Europe between 8400–8300 BC and 7200–7000 BC, starting in southern Europe and gradually moving north to Great Britain, may represent land clearing by fire at the onset of Neolithic agriculture.

<comment><USER7> Good quote. Yes, another aspect of this is _which_ wild do we want to have?

Which is why Pleistocene rewilding ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_rewilding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_rewilding) ) is a thing. From that page:

> Opponents argue that there has been more than enough time for communities to > evolve in the absence of mega-fauna, and thus the reintroduction of large > mammals could thwart ecosystem dynamics and possibly cause collapse.

Life is messy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The environmental benefits of re-introducing wolves are well described. However, with more and more people packed into the south of England, the economic benefits from tourism are going to be enormous. For example the re- introduction of the White-tailed Eagle benefits the economy of the island of Mull to the tune of 5 million UK pounds per year.

[http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/wildlifeatwork_tcm9-282134.pdf](http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/wildlifeatwork_tcm9-282134.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Ahh Mull! We are visiting Oban next week (big trip - we're coming over from the Netherlands via the ferry), and I'm going to try and get over to Mull, Iona and maybe even Staffa in our own car. I remember seeing the eagles from the bus when I did the Three Islands Tour years ago. I'm really excited for the kids to see the islands, just hope the weather allows it. :)

<comment><USER11> Mull is a wonderful place, and imo the Autumn is the best time to visit. Much quieter than mid-Summer.

Calgary Bay is beautiful at this time of year - there will be very few people around. There is a nice cafe at the old hotel, and the Calgary Art in Nature [1] is a great place to wander around.

If you're going to Staffa - which I'd definitely recommend - its best to go from the Ulva ferry on the west coast. The sea trip is much shorter than from Tobermory, which helps if the weather is bad, and you get to spend more time on the island. We used Turus Mara [2], who I'd recommend.

Hope you have a good trip!

[1] [http://www.calgary.co.uk/art.html](http://www.calgary.co.uk/art.html)

[2] [http://www.turusmara.com/](http://www.turusmara.com/)

<comment><USER12> I had to look this up to check, but FYI the names of seasons are conventionally not capitalised.

<comment><USER11> Thanks! They always seem like they should be proper nouns to me. The fact that they actually aren't is something that I periodically rediscover and then forget - which is no excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Lack of wolves and bears has caused some interesting side effects in Southern England where I live. Namely, the deer population has exploded as their only predator is now the motorcar. It's pretty cool seeing massive flocks of them and the occasional close encounter on my mountain bike; I once fed one some lettuce from a sandwich.

On the other hand, they are eating all the woods, starting with the saplings which is causing real harm to the sustainability of forests.

Predictably, the notion of culling some is very controversial, especially from nature loving people. But the alternative is bringing back the wolves. The wolves will do lots of wolfy things like killing dogs and eating livestock and be equally controversial.

(edit: SPAG)

<comment><USER14> It's not remotely controversial in Scotland - estates effectively have legal requirements for the numbers of deer they need to shoot each year to keep the population even vaguely under control (in fact, many campaigners complain that estate populations are allowed to keep deer populations too high to improve the commercial hunting.) This is generally accepted because, as you say, they have no natural predators. Is the situation different in England? I didn't realise it was.

<comment><USER15> I think what he means is, that while it's not controversial with anyone who actually owns property in Scotland, there's a huge public disapproval of any hunting, the purpose doesn't matter. Deer would need to be literally eating babies for any newspaper to run a story saying that shooting them is good, otherwise people immediately complain that such inhumane acts are done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You know, we could avoid a lot of the culturally ingrained fear of wolves if we instead "returned Labrador Retrievers to the wild", and let feral packs of them roam Scotland pursuing deer. So cute.

<comment><USER17> Nice image but in reality labradors, unlike wolves, don't have a innate fear of humans so feral labradors would be much more dangerous than wild wolves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are some great charities trying to restore the ancient woodlands of Scotland - the Trees for Life site has a lot of good information about some of the issues relating to high deer populations:

[http://treesforlife.org.uk/](http://treesforlife.org.uk/)

</comment><comment><USER3> _" To be lying in your tent in the middle of nowhere and to hear a wolf cry. Now that must be quite something."_

The first time? Maybe. It quickly becomes distracting, annoying, and (depending on the distance) frightening.

The only decent argument I can find for reintroducing wolves is that it would help keep wild deer in check. But the costs of wolves are far higher than the costs of too many deer. Deer don't kill livestock or humans. And of course, wolves aren't the only solution to reducing the deer population. They can be culled in other ways. The whole thing seems like a non-starter to me.

I think most who are in favor of reintroducing wolves are just infatuated with charismatic megafauna. "Wolves look cool and they used to be on the island, so let's bring 'em back." …or something like that. Then they rationalize their conclusion with arguments about tourism and culling deer.

What if instead of wolves, it was crocodiles that had been eradicated from Scotland? I seriously doubt there would be as many supporters, yet the same arguments for reintroduction apply.

<comment><USER19> Killing livestock is an issue, but killing humans isn't really; it's essentially in the "freak accident" category, and less common than even most rare sources of freak accidents. So far, at least, the reintroduction process in the lower-48 U.S. states (which has been going on for about 20 years) hasn't led to any attacks on humans at all. If you include Alaska, which has a native wolf population, there's been exactly one wolf fatality in the U.S. in the entire period since WW2.

As for crocodiles: There's quite a bit of effort being expended to protect the declining crocodile population in Florida, so I don't think it'd be categorically out of the question.

<comment><USER20> I didn't know Florida had crocodiles (I lived for a year in Tallahassee so I only saw alligators). Wikipedia tells me that there has only been one reported human attack in Florida ever. So pretty low risk.

I grew up in Canada and especially when I lived near Ottawa, I heard wolves fairly frequently. I never saw one. Personally, I'm quite happy to live near them. The risk is incredibly low compared to pretty much anything you would care to mention with respect to living in a man made environment. According to Snopes, on average 1 person a year is killed in the US by lightning hitting them through telephone lines.

Wikipedia tells me that 7600 people were killed by wolves in Europe... in the period from 1362 to 1918. I'm willing to believe that the numbers are under reported (damn middle ages where people were too illiterate to file a police report), but I think the risks are pretty negligable. I suspect that even if Scotland reintroduces wolves, you will still be at higher risk of dying by getting hit by lightning through the telephone lines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In the 17th century one of the nicknames some English people had for Ireland was Wolfland.

The century following the Cromwellian conquest saw a bounty-led drive to exterminate wolves with the last one being killed in 1786.

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

</comment><comment><USER22> Wolves also returned (naturally I believe) to Denmark last year: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/112...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/11213512/Wolves- roaming-wild-in-Denmark-for-first-time-in-200-years.html)

<comment><USER8> The European mainland is big on intentional rewilding, but a lot of the time the animals simply walk. Britain, obviously, is kind of stuffed for that. (In fact, we have been since Doggerland flooded, which is why even at peak biodiversity in this interglacial, Britain was a bit short on wildlife compared to the continent.)

</comment></comment><comment> m-i-l It is interesting how something considered harmful can have beneficial effects. In this case reintroducing wolves could control the deer population and help the re-establish some of the Caledonian Forest.

There was another example I read recently: the Indian Vulture Crisis[0]. Apparently the vulture population in India has been declining dramatically. I wouldn't have thought vultures were particularly good, but their declining population has led to all sorts of significant issues such as an explosion in the number of wild dogs and the spread of disease. It has been traced to the administration of an anti-inflammatory called diclofenac to livestock.

Nature has many complex interactions.

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

</comment><comment><USER23> The rabbits are on strike</comment>


Amazon announces 4th quarter sales - rising-sky https://ir.aboutamazon.com/static-files/bf635f1d-f1d0-4cf3-b172-bb6ebdc6241b <comment><AUTHOR> They earned it.

Polar vortex is here. I'm going to be outside at a customer site working on some equipment.

Need a hat. Something thick and furry.

We have an actual "indie millinery shop" in my city. Yay! Support your local merchant!

No winter hats. If I wanted a $399 Super Duper Hats Albino Fedora 100% rabbit fur felt fedora I could get it in an hour but no winter hats.

So then I went to Bass Pro, JCPenney, Sears, Nordstrom, Dick's, Macy's, Eddie Bauer, Burlington, Target, and finally REI.

Only a handful of them had any winter hats and none of them had any men's adult-sized hats in stock. Not even a beanie.

On Tuesday, January 29th at 6:57pm I left REI after having wasted over three hours going to 11 retailers and I got into my car. While in the REI parking lot I ordered a winter hat and gloves from Amazon for $45 with Prime next day delivery.

They were delivered at 3:03pm the next day. Before the sub-zero temperatures.

This keeps happening over and over again, I stopped being a "grazing" shopper over a decade ago and only buy specific items after research.

No retailers seem to be adapting, just racing to the bottom.

Burlington looked like a nightmarish blindingly brightly-lit hellscape with garbage that had already failed to sell at Target being strewn about as old ladies picked through it.

As far as I'm concerned, brick and mortar is dead.

edit: to be fair, if I wanted a SWAT-team/bank robber balaclava that covered my entire face, the sporting goods stores had me covered. I prefer that people I'm interacting with at work see my face.

<comment><USER2> > brick and mortar is dead.

Honestly, partnering with Amazon and basically giving you a product instantly would make brick and mortar thrive.

You want to buy this thing? If it's available at Best Buy, you can pick up within minutes at the counter and Amazon can ship a replacement to Best Buy in the next few days.

<comment><USER3> I wonder of retailers getting slightly different model numbers has anything to do with preventing this from ever being possible. I know they do it on black Friday to avoid price matching but I seem to run across wierd almost-exactly- the-same electronics at the local electronic stores more often than just black Friday.

<comment> jon-wood John Lewis in the UK do this all the time, mostly because they loudly promise to match the price on any product in their store. It just so happens that the product in their store is a shade of green which is exclusive to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rising-sky > "Alexa was very busy during her holiday season. Echo Dot was the best- > selling item across all products on Amazon globally, and customers purchased > millions more devices from the Echo family compared to last year," said Jeff > Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. "The number of research scientists working on > Alexa has more than doubled in the past year, and the results of the team's > hard work are clear. In 2018, we improved Alexa's ability to understand > requests and answer questions by more than 20% through advances in machine > learning, we added billions of facts making Alexa more knowledgeable than > ever, developers doubled the number of Alexa skills to over 80,000, and > customers spoke to Alexa tens of billions more times in 2018 compared to > 2017"

<comment><USER4> I have a HomePod and Echo Dot. I trust the HomePod more in terms of privacy, build quality, customer service, warranty, etc. The Echo Dot is way better at finding my voice and doing what I want it to do. The HomePod goes off randomly when the TV is on, and it costs 10x more.

<comment><USER5> Do either of them actually provide any value (apart from homepod audio quality)? For the life of me I can't find a reason to have one of these in my house and I really am not concerned about the privacy issues.

<comment><USER6> Really depends on the individual. For my family, Alexa is almost indispensable, especially with a baby.

Controlling lights, fans, HVAC, TV (shield, amp, etc), Todo and shopping lists, cooking/laundry timers, reminders, tracking baby (diapers, bottles, nursing), weather.

Being able to turn on a light and track baby events while you're up to your elbows in poop is really invaluable.

Definitely won't add smart locks anywhere in the mix.

Limited music since we use Google music.

Also, Celery Man.

<comment><USER7> > Celery Man

Had to Google that. Clearly I've been missing out by not having cable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> $10B in net income in 2018. I guess it's not an investor-run charity for consumers anymore [1].

[1] [https://slate.com/business/2013/01/amazon-q4-profits- fall-45...](https://slate.com/business/2013/01/amazon-q4-profits- fall-45-percent.html)

<comment><USER8> Also intesting: AMZN's net income was 4.3% of sales. For AMZN to reach AAPL's valuation of 13.5 P/E, AMZN would need to do $1.5 trillion in sales.

But if it continues to grow sales at 31%, it should get there by 2025.

<comment><USER9> That's a crazy pair of facts. Interesting to compare Walmart on this front - its revenue is $500B with growth at 2%, whereas Amazon has sales on the same order of magnitude but growth an order of magnitude higher. I wonder how long this rate of growth is sustainable, both for Amazon and the rest of FAANG. Have there ever been companies this big growing this fast?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I noticed that margins are down compared to the previous quarter in the three segments (US, International, AWS). Maybe there is some seasonal explanation for that, but in 2017 margins improved in the three segments.

</comment><comment><USER11> dang, if you read this, I think you should seriously consider banning earnings report articles. They always come and clutter up the feed, hiding the substantive information and technical news I come to Hacker News specifically for.

Because I feel like if I really wanted a feed of quarterly earnings, I'd be on Google Finance or something, not HN. The name is _Hacker_ News, or has that been forgotten at this point?

<comment><USER12> HN has, since the 2016 Presidential election, become a dumping ground for low- quality pieces from various popular media outlets (you know the ones I'm talking about), as well as all kinds of generally-interesting-but-not-related- to-tech-in-any-way stories. My guess is that since the very idea of a "startup" has waned in recent years, the readership has shifted from a technical one to a political one. There isn't much any one of us can do to correct this. The people who want this kind of content apparently now outnumber folks like us who wish that content would stay on Reddit.

<comment><USER13> People have been saying that for a long time now:

2008: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278434) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348994) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=243561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=243561)

2010: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1542380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1542380)

2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485)

There has always been a mix of general-interest and technical articles on HN, and a certain portion of politics. I wrote more about this if anyone wants more:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18511923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18511923)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> No mention of Audible?

<comment><USER15> I don't think Audible is a significant portion of Amazon revenue.</comment></comment>


Understanding Basic CSS Selectors - <AUTHOR> https://freeborncharles.com/css-basic-selectors/ <comment><USER2> I would've liked to see the ">" (element-element selector, .foo > .bar) and explanation of a space (e.g., .foo.bar vs .foo .bar).

These above examples are quite common in real-world CSS, and the nuances in syntax are small, yet they have a big impact on document styling.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A look at CSS selectors and basic selector types</comment>


Carlos Ghosn Flees Trial in Japan for Lebanese Homeland - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/carlos-ghosn-arrives-in-lebanon-after-fleeing-japan-11577741238 <comment><USER2> I wonder if the Japanese authorities didn't just decide the case against him wasn't strong enough (or that his lawyers were fighting it too hard) and they might jeopardize their legendary 99% conviction rates, and they decided to look the other way while he "escaped."

<comment><USER3> Dunno why being downvoted for this. Makes perfect sense. I'm surprised the guy didn't flee earlier -- his bail money (~$15mn) would be a pittance. Pity his poor lieutenant left behind though. Nasty business.

<comment><USER4> Surely they didn't let him keep his passport; how is he crossing borders?

<comment><USER5> Almost certainly a newly issued Lebanese passport.

<comment><USER6> You don't need a valid passport to land in Beirut, at least that's my lived experience.

I have dual citizenship, I was born in XX. Our Lebanese passports had expired, so my mother and I used our XX passports to fly into Beirut several years ago—I purchased a visa upon touching down, but boarder control insisted I return it, they recognized my last name [1]. Leaving two days later without being able to produce evidence of military service (I was 17 at the time) was a nightmare, and the XX government would not help seeing as how this was not their problem (the curse of a dual citizenship), but I got lucky (see [1]). Come to think of it, Lebanon was in such disarray at the time, it would have been nearly impossible to renounce my Lebanese citizenship—even today, I have no idea what the first step would be.

[1] I'm no Ghosn, but my grandfather had toyed with the idea of running for federal office in Lebanon at the time.

<comment><USER5> If you can trust the news, he travelled on a French passport plus a Lebanese ID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't blame him.

The Japanese justice system is messed up ... long detention periods to induce confessions and then not allowed to see your family is just so cruel.

So I take their conviction rate of 99% with a rather large bag of salt.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would love to see a real deep dive on what happened with Ghosn. All I've heard about is snippets of Japan being unhappy that the alliance looked likely to end up with Nissan being a susbidiary of Renault rather than vice versa, then there's all these accusations of corruption - which probably aren't completely unfoundeed, but could easily just be a pretext. It feels like someone could write a full "Bad Blood" style piece about all the twists and turns and it'd be really interesting.

<comment><USER9> > It feels like someone could write a full "Bad Blood" style piece about all > the twists and turns and it'd be really interesting.

You're not wrong.

He was hailed as the savior of Nissan and there were a manga of him about it IIRC. He saved Nissan in the 90s and turned that company around. I've stopped follow car news after 2010s and have stopped fawning over Nissan. But the fall of him is really weird I've no clue what's going on but very crazy 180 turn of event of recent years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Japanese conviction rate is the highest in the world, higher than dictatorships that coerce confessions through beatings. No one should reasonably expect a fair trial in Japan.

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://archive.is/2tAtr](https://archive.is/2tAtr)

</comment><comment><USER12> Homeland? Pretty sure Carlos Ghosn was born in brazil.

<comment><USER13> I remember reading about him in Brazil while I was graduating. He is definitely born in Brazil, but I think he has another citizenship too. Wikipedia says

>is a Brazilian-born French businessman of Lebanese ancestry.

And

>Nationality French–Lebanese–Brazilian

<comment><USER14> The guy doesn't have balls, he has passports</comment></comment></comment>


The company that owns the New Yorker is bleeding money - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2019/4/4/18295653/new-yorker-vogue-magazine-conde-nast-ceo <comment><USER2> I am part of the problem, I only read the New Yorker at my library. I am always shocked at the price tag on the cover. I guess they pay their writers really well. I also remember from footage from New York they have a really nice location?

Conde Nast also own reddit.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17248210](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17248210)

That big service isn't profitable either?

<comment><USER3> Tech speaking Advance Publications "own" reddit as it's largest share holder. Advance Publications Also own Conde Nast.

Conde Nast used to own reddit. But a few years (2014) ago it split off as it's own entity but giving Advance Publications the majority shareholder state and had a funding round at the same time. It's had a couple more funding round since with its most recent being $300M in feb.

Not sure about the financial state of Advance Publications though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the publication itself profitable?</comment>


Why the case against "Dread Pirate Roberts" will fall flat - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/85dc5cccf8c6

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately you're wrong on at least two counts:

1 - DPR can easily be implicated in every trade that took place on SR by virtue of the commission I presume was taken. After all if there was none, where did this income of his come from?

3 - Bitcoins are money, in the US and several other countries now: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/federal-judge- bit...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/federal-judge-bitcoin-a- currency-can-be-regulated-under-american-law/)

Regarding point 2, that's a very specific charge - my guess would be you'll see there's some very specific evidence behind it when it goes to trial.

</comment><comment><USER3> Drug trafficking is the least of his worries

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/feds-silkroad- bos...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/feds-silkroad-boss- paid-80000-for-snitchs-murder-and-torture/)</comment>


Zed Shaw, LPTHW, & Learn You An Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://krainboltgreene.github.com/l/10/

<comment><AUTHOR> Heavily considering the name change: Learn You __The __Ruby For Awesome Power.

EDIT: Ok, slowly moving over. Time to rewrite history! Future GooglAzon.com users will be like " _What Ye Mystery Doth This?! YouErEls point to Learn You An Ruby, but Thine Project Was Called-eth Learn You The Ruby!_ " And no one will ever understand why, because Hacker News will be like Slashdot and no one will visit it except to make ironic references to "hacker newsing a site", because MyFacespora Newsddit will be where all the cool startup guys hang out.

</comment><comment><USER2> For some reason that "An" irks me way more than it should.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trust me, I feel like that much more of a dweeb when I tell people out loud.

"I'm writing a book, Learn You...(whisper)an ruby(whisper)...For awesome Power"

<comment><USER2> Well I dare say why not keep going with the trend and have it something like Learn you the Ruby for great good! (At least that hurts a bit less :))

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh man! Shucks. "The" would have been so much better :/

I need an INTERNET search and replace.

<comment><USER3> Just change it now, the internet will catch up. The sooner you do it, the better. Obviously only do it if you really want to change the title.

(FWIW I don't really like the "an" either, sorry!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like how why's (poignant) guide to Ruby kicked off the trend for quirky programming language books, and now we're back to writing quirky programming language books for Ruby. (Though the poignant guide may have been a little _too_ quirky.)

<comment><USER5> Didn't care for Mr Bunny?

<comment><USER6> Did Mr. Bunny ever appear in anything but his guide to ActiveX? I can understand why someone might not have heard of ActiveX.

Anyone old enough to grow up in the era of early PCs remembers quirky programming books. I learned Pascal from the Sherlock Holmes-themed Pascal book back in the day. Though, admittedly, Mr. Bunny and the cartoon foxes are an order of magnitude quirkier.

<comment><USER7> Mr. Bunny also appeared in _Mr. Bunny's Big Cup o' Java_ , which featured a full-page image of a semicolon, one of the more important characters used in Java code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just wanted to pipe in and say that as Martin's former boss (before he went to Engine Yard) I think this whole Internet firestorm is hilarious. I always knew he'd make me proud :)

</comment><comment><USER9> The Learn You A Haskell, and Learn You Some Erlang links both point to Learn You Some Erlang. Some folks may become confused. :)

<comment><USER10> I see no problem there.

<comment><USER11> It's been fixed. See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877829>

<comment><USER10> Was just a failed attempt at humour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a writer AND a programmer, I applaud the creativity people are bringing to writing about Language. And I mean language in the programming sense. Ruby is obviously exciting many people out there and it's great to see the creativity didn't stop with _why's book. Perhaps it's just beginning.

</comment><comment><USER13> Quick question about Learn You A * books -- has anyone here ever started from 0, read one, and then started writing useful software?

<comment><USER14> LYAH really helped cement some of my Haskell knowledge; I'm at that middle sort of zone where I knew basic stuff, but some of the more advanced things don't make sense to me yet. The Applicative, Monad, and Zippers parts in particular have helped me a lot.

<comment><USER13> What sorts of programming problems have you solved with Applicative, Monad, and Zippers so far?

<comment><USER14> I'm not actually doing anything useful with Haskell. It's purely an intellectual plaything with me.

That said, I've used Applicative when playing around with parsing, and Monads... all the time. Though mostly just IO, Maybe, Writer, and State, nothing crazy.

I'm still getting comfortable with Zippers, so I have yet to even toy around with them. But the LYAH description was much easier than any of the other (small amounts) of reading I've done on the subject.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > First, this assumes you've got a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 (But any > version around that should work).

Do we really need to be so specific to learn ruby ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Getting Ruby up and running is different for every major OS out there.

Quite frankly I don't have the resources to document how to do it on the Mac.

Windows is...well I don't know, just a few months ago it was almost non- existent, now I hear it's not to bad?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> these "Learn You..." (NB: this does not include LPTHW) books seem like a post- modern version of the "For Dummies" series. So, if you enjoyed the vapid "For Dummies"-style jokes but wanted more non-sequiturs, these are the books for you.

<comment><USER17> I am currently writing Learn You Some Erlang. I have never read one of the 'For Dummies' book, have no idea what tone they employ or what kind of readers they assume they have.

I can say, however, that there already exist a few books on Erlang, quite serious, that actually cost money. I wanted to offer a free resource to learn Erlang, given my frustration at the lack such things when I began learning the language myself. I found a problem, and am currently trying my best to solve it.

If you feel like learning the language but my book's style and/or tone annoys you, you might prefer buying one of the books. There's also an online tutorial on erlang.org and an interactive one on tryerlang.org.

<comment><USER18> Your book is amazing. I've been trying to learn erlang, and you were the first person I've come across who really explains things well. I just wanted to thank you, and encourage you to keep on writing.

A link, for anybody who's curious:

<http://learnyousomeerlang.com/content></comment></comment></comment>


Babbage was a true genius (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://tomforsyth1000.github.io/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BBabbage%20was%20a%20true%20genius%5D%5D <comment> amar-singh Yes..Babbage was a true genious...Right now because of him the distance between coutries became very small and we can contact nayone from any corner of the world..He is truly a great inventor....Life became easy only cause of him..thank you....</comment>


The drivers of big tech's growth are losing momentum - <AUTHOR> http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/06/is-tech-bubble-bursting.html <comment><USER2> Not a chance. There's still so much inefficiency in so many legacy industries. Software will continue to eat the world for decades to come.

<comment><USER3> That statement was even more true when the last tech bubble burst early this millenium.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot- com_bubble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble)

That bubble formed because of inefficiencies and excessive speculation in the tech market itself after a period of extreme growth.

I'm not necessarily agreeing with the article that we have arrived at that point in the cycle again, but I'm not as sure as you that it won't happen at all. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER4> In other words, it's one thing to say the platitude is true, it's another thing to time it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You might want to say Silicon Valley had a good run or software as a service had a good run or mobile apps had a good run. But this is essentially saying the end of tech is here. That's like saying everything is now invented and there is nothing new to be discovered.

<comment><USER6> That's not at all what the author is saying. He's saying that consumer attention and convenience has hit its limit. That's not the entire field of technology.

Energy clean and too cheap to measure, faster construction, new modes of manufacturing, new medicines, efficiency of engines, new modes of transportation and propulsion and so on. You can easily imagine an entire array of things that would materially improve our lives and improve productivity through the entire economy, applicable even in rural places.

What has probably reached its end is the zero-sum rent seeking enabled by platform owners and attention merchants. Maybe the Silicon Valley investors of this world will go back to the scifi of the 60s and try to come up with inventions that touch the physical world instead of continuing to pump money into the cyberpunk version of the future we've been trying to emulate for the last 20 years.

<comment><USER7> We are currently seeing more of a diffusion of technology outside of the first world and a regression to the mean across economies than the breakout productivity growth we saw in the US/Europe/Japan post WWII

So productivity growth is definitely happening globally, but generally by bringing existing tech to new geographies (usually combined with cheaper labor input and less regulation), or adapting existing technology to legacy processes in industrialized economies

Investors are not returning to scifi of the 60s, just take a look at the latest YC demo day: loan due diligence, direct to consumer B2B platform, "AirBNB for electric chargers", online sales academy, contractor onboarding software - tech is truly focused on picking some huge TAM market and taking x% of that market from legacy competitors by having a narrow focus and adding "tech" to the offering [1]

The lucrative place to be right now is private equity - there's so much money floating around for buying and selling companies right now ($2TN in uninvested "dry powder" at end of 2018). Why invent new products and companies when you could simply buy an existing business and cut costs to attain or boost profitability

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/19/best-of-y- combinator/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/19/best-of-y-combinator/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "The race isn't to maximize profits, it's to survive the inevitable > deflationary spiral in prices as competitors are forced to pass along cost > savings to customers to retain market share." > [https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay19/tech- > deflationary5-19.h...](https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay19/tech- > deflationary5-19.html)

Is this supposed to sound horrible?

<comment><USER9> Maybe. If Uber and Lyft both ride their excellent technologies down to penny- stock share prices, because even good technology just barely keeps companies in business, then anyone who expected to profit from their success might be disappointed.

<comment><USER10> Allow me to present the world's smallest violin.

We've forgotten what "good technology" means.

<comment><USER11> While I'm certainly no ridesharing apologist, Uber/Lyft have raised the bar _significantly_ in terms of forcing drivers to do basic things that cabs simply failed to do in most places:

1) Actually freakin' show up.

2) Not take the lifetime of the universe showing up

3) Accept credit cards

4) Clean their car occasionally

I can go on ...

If Uber/Lyft completely flame out, I would not like to see these things go back to the way they used to be.

<comment><USER10> They're use products, I just wouldn't call them "technology."

The technology is everything that enables these apps (GPS, mobile chipsets, cellular technology, mobile OS, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My ambivalent take:

Lot's of the big tech is just user interfaces (Uber, Airbnb, even Netflix). There is some utility in better interfaces - but overall their market power comes from squeezing the suppliers (see [https://stratechery.com/2017/defining- aggregators/](https://stratechery.com/2017/defining-aggregators/) and my assimilation of it: [https://hackernoon.com/aggregators- bffd36063a72](https://hackernoon.com/aggregators-bffd36063a72)). This is a market inefficiency and it will be eventually fixed somehow.

But it is not everything - because we can automate more and more stuff beside user interfaces, this will grow.

<comment><USER13> Uber and Airbnb are more than just user interfaces. They actually unlock economic potential that was previously left unused.

It's not like all those cars and drivers and spare rooms were being used for anything else before, or offered through some other "interface"

I'd argue that they created both the supply and the demand, so in effect an entire market. That's rather more than an interface

<comment><USER12> I agree that they do unlock some economic potential - but still they are just user interfaces. They don't own any of the physical facilities and they don't do any sophisticated computations - all they do is matching offers and that is just user interface.

User interface is not rocket science. They did unlock some economic potential and they have been rewarded for this - but the equilibrium state is when return on investing in Uber and investing in a physical facility (a car used as taxi or for Uber) is the same. An app (Uber market cap $40B) cannot be worth more than a factory (Ford market cap $9B) forever, because app is easier to produce and if it is worth more now - then this attract competition that will drive this down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes, because clearly technology consists solely of only web services and mobile apps. No other technical advancements and inventions exist or will ever be built. This is quite literally the peak of humanity folks.

We've done everything possible and there's absolutely nothing left for us to imagine, discover, or create. /s

<comment><USER7> That's not what the author is arguing, he's simply stating that a main driver of this tech cycle - matching platforms for the sharing of private assets such as Uber and AirBnB - is running into problems, with appetite decreasing in public markets for companies that show (slowing) user growth with no clear path to profitability. A valid point.

What remains to be seen is the second claim - "the fantasy that AI and machine learning will generate trillions in profits"

While I tend to agree that ML/AI are generally deployed to save costs rather than increase revenue and create totally new categories of products, there are definitely still a lot of brownfield opportunities in legacy tech for data scientists to tackle and automate

This also ignores the huge opportunity for cloud service providers to take compute-as-a-service business from legacy on-prem/datacenter biz as well

But I would challenge you to think outside the sarcastic box and propose what you see as a few of the main technological drivers of productivity growth that are currently popping up in tech

<comment><USER14> What really needs to be answered here is why you suddenly stopped putting periods at the end of your sentences after your first paragraph.

On a more serious note, if you're genuinely interested, just take a look at my historical posts/comments on HN. I post all the interesting articles I see from my personal feed on here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> At some level Mors law is the ultimate driver of tech growth. It's not looking so hot.

<comment><USER8> I think AMD figured it out with chiplets actually... most software isn't even written yet to take advantage of cheap massive parallelism. That is an entire direction to grow after single thread performance flatlines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Smith is not that good a prognosticator. He's better than Howard Kunstler, who, despite having his finger on the pulse of certain recent trends, has completely misunderstood the underlying factors causing those trends. Smith is much the same way--a Boomer who has a Boomer world view. To be true visionary, you have to be able to effectively set aside your own biases, something which we are all guilty of having difficulty with. You have to let the clues take you to conclusions that you aren't comfortable with--something that today's liberals are exceedingly bad at doing. Their indoctrination does not allow them to chart a different course, they end up headed straight for the rocks.

I think the smartphone fad is going to die down. The uptake rate of purchased apps has got to be kind of dismal right now. It had novelty, now it doesn't. Frankly, these phones are nothing but a pain. My 9-year old son has a phone, he doesn't care. My teenage daughter uses some social media but the kids are very wary of all of it having heard the horror stories and lived a few of them. Telemarketers have utterly wrecked voice to the point where I never hardly answer my phone anymore. Their bullshit has cut us off from each other instead of bringing us together. Either it dies or we die.

His other point, financialization, is correct. But the issue there is that all these companies were created to chew up money, not to better humanity. Our priorities are what are all out of whack here. We could have spent all the capital far more wisely, but it got allocated to sexy "disruptive" ideas like Uber and Airbnb instead. Meanwhile, air travel sucks, traffic jams are way up, and honestly, the US is headed to a 3rd World nation status because we haven't invested in the things that really matter. Thus, in the midst of this extravagant tech expansion, we have very little to show for it. Just money down a hole. A kind of Keynesian money-sink situation.

Uber does stand out as terrible disruption. Cab companies had it coming, but every day now I drive amongst these asinine Uber/Lyft stickered vehicles and it just seems so...amateur. It's amateur hour. The tech behind it was cool, but the actual, rubbe-meets-the-road aspect looks so completely idiotic to me. For people who drive so much, they sure as hell aren't very good at it, either!

<comment><USER17> > The uptake rate of purchased apps has got to be kind of dismal right now.

On the contrary, all indicators point to big YoY increases. As an example, "during the week starting on Christmas Eve, a record number of customers made purchases or downloaded apps from the App Store, spending over $890 million in that seven-day period." Other sources are talking about overall 25%+ revenue increases for both Apple's and Google's stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Absolutely, yes. As indicated by the terrible stock performance after the IPOs of Uber and Lyft. This is literally the market in action.

<comment><USER19> > As indicated by the terrible stock performance after the IPOs of Uber and > Lyft.

The Lyft price is down but it looks like Uber has kept pace with the overall market since their IPO. I think we'd struggle to find many people who would define "keeping pace with the market" as "terrible stock performance".</comment></comment>


Running a car costs much more than people think - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01118-w <comment><USER2> The article discusses public transportation as an alternative to vehicle ownership. Since this took place in Germany, this probably makes sense. From what I've heard, the public transit system in Germany is pretty great.

I wish public transportation were an option where I live. I hate owning a car.

</comment><comment><USER3> Car owners is a all or nothing problem. You need to provide a ton on public transport options and make them great before people give up cars.</comment>


Facebook app gives everyone a public, dynamic "friend score" - <AUTHOR> http://apps.facebook.com/myfriendtrend/

<comment><AUTHOR> This Facebook App computes a personal "friend score" for everyone based on a fun/easy head-to-head rating system. The scores can be used for entertainment or as a resource (like a social version of your credit score). I would appreciate feedback.</comment>


Peek into pied piper engineering team - <AUTHOR> https://yodas.co/pied-piper/eng

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, It's Nir from Yodas. In Yodas we profile engineering teams and enable outsiders to peek into how they operate. We created Pied Piper as a sample profile.

We would love to hear what you think of it.</comment>


As HN: Any YC startup that isn't software? - <AUTHOR>

I'm not interested in applying for a company that doesn't write software, but can anyone think of YC startups outside software, and, even more broadly, outside the "technology" space?
I ask because of:
Do you only fund startups that write software? We'll consider startups in any field, but odds are better for startups writing software, because that's what we understand. <comment><USER2> It depends where you draw the line. Does Carwoo count as being in the software business?

</comment><comment><USER3> Wakemate and Wattvision have hardware components. They still have some software, of course, but they sell their hardware.</comment>


Show HN: Chrome extension to monitor the top Hacker News story in real time - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hack-the-news/oehghgdldepmknikdpjakmpbonlkmnfa

<comment><AUTHOR> What does it do exactly?

Displays a Hacker News icon on your browser that changes color when the top story changes.

How does it do it?

The extension opens a websocket connection to the Hacker News Firebase ([https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/](https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/)) so it can detect new top stories in real time.

Source code at [https://github.com/robbiewain/hack-the- news](https://github.com/robbiewain/hack-the-news)

I really just made it for myself but others have found it useful so I'm posting here. Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER2> Are there any more screenshots than just that? What does it do exactly?

<comment><AUTHOR> An excellent point! I've added a 2nd screenshot and a slightly better description.</comment></comment>


ABOT – Automate critical tasks - <AUTHOR> https://www.itsabot.org/ <comment><USER2> Looks interesting, but I immediately have problems getting it to work with "failed to process text missing user". I also get 500 server errors when trying to install the plugins, which I assume means it's hitting a problem before I'm trying to run it normally.

Are there updated installation instructions? The version on github is 0.2 but the instructions seem to be for 0.1.

<comment><USER3> Hey Ian. Never intended for this to be posted so early (as it's clearly not ready). I'm getting some bugfixes out today that should address your problems.

The README on the master branch is the most current set of instructions.

<comment><USER4> This might make a good "Show HN" when it's ready.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. In the next few months it'll be ready for a proper unveiling!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, is this 100% going to keep my information private?

<comment><USER3> You deploy it on your own database, so I suppose your information security depends on you (or the DB-as-a-service provider you choose).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> looks interesting, I´ll take a look? :)

</comment><comment><USER7> As I understand, it's very similar (in functionality) to this: [https://www.getmagicnow.com/](https://www.getmagicnow.com/)

Or there are more differences?

<comment><USER2> Magic is a service like a concierge, managed by people.

This is a framework for building your own bots.</comment></comment>


The world of HBGary - <AUTHOR> http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2011/02/world-of-hbgary.html <comment><USER2> > The reason why I am frightened is the emergence of a new class of government > contractors

How is this new? Haven't government contractors been blowing smoke and mirrors at the government for decades now?

We live in an age now where it's possible for these companies/individuals to be held accountable by undeniable evidence. It's a sign of truly accountable democracy.

What is scary is that exploitation of such companies is possible and is becoming more and more likely to happen (i.e. Wikileaks). People are growing exponentially pissed at the perceived lies and destruction of the US gov't and it's oligarchic overlords. Non-transparency doesn't fly for techies. Just imagine what these script kiddies could do to the likes of Halliburton KBR...that's scary. (in a good way)

<comment><USER3> Not on this scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is not news, the business model "Create a scary threat, offer a solution" is old. I would not be surprised if some paleontologist asserted that the first 'sharpened' rock was marketed as a defense against the sabertooth tiger meanace.

</comment><comment><USER5> post author does not comprehend..the attackers were not bored 'kids' the techniques used are common techniques used by criminal hackers world-wide.

HBGary was incompetent at even the most basic level.

<comment><USER6> using the hyperlink text "bored kids" to link to an article on a 45 year old obsessive conspiracy theorist doesn't exactly help the author's point.

<comment><USER7> <http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/>

Tell me when you've done as much as the author. His point - thats we're giving money to companies that for services that they can't provide for themselves - is valid.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: how do porn sites scale? - <AUTHOR>

porn sites , they getting huge traffic , is there info bout how they scale in server / clients ? can someone tell from inside the porn tech industry ? <comment><USER2> [http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/4/2/youporn- targeting-2...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/4/2/youporn- targeting-200-million-views-a-day-and-beyond.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I am no expert but why would scaling be any different for porn site than any other high traffic growing site?</comment>


SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/05/sec-rule-ceopay-idUSL1N10G1IY20150805 <comment><USER2> Can someone explain to me why we're outraged that CEOs make lots of money? I truly don't understand it.

My presumption is that CEOs are adding enough value to be worth their pay, just like every other worker (should be).

<comment><USER3> There's a lot of suspicion that your presumption isn't accurate. It's a fairly big area of research, though. One alternate hypothesis is a form of "executive capture", that companies nominally owned by shareholders are actually run by more of a clique of executives, who serve on each others' boards and pay each other large salaries. Some mild but inconclusive correlational evidence for that view is that when controlling for other factors (size, industry, etc.), CEOs are paid less at private companies and companies with concentrated ownership, than at companies with diffuse ownership—suggesting that when the owner is in charge and paying attention, they prefer to rein in executive pay.

<comment><USER4> "There's a lot of suspicion that your presumption isn't accurate"

If this is the case, the only people that should be worried about it are the shareholders and the other people that own the company.

If I was running a company and I had more money to spare (because I couldn't pay the CEO past a certain amount of money), I'm not just going to pay a worker because it sounds nice. Workers should be paid based on market value and the value they bring to the company.

<comment><USER5> > If this is the case, the only people that should be worried about it are the > shareholders and the other people that own the company.

And the SEC is responsible for improving company/shareholder relationships, so this falls under their directorate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have thought once I establish a company, I might tie CEO salary to be limited to being a multiple of the least paid employee. Then what the good ratio is becomes an interesting question to me. Is 10x enough? Is 100x too much? Is a CEO's productivity worth 100x the lowest paid employee?

If we go with the lowest paid employee is making 30k a year, and the CEO is making 3mil? Is that too much, not enough, just right?

There isn't a right answer and it entirely depends on the purpose of the company and the model, but I do think it's an interesting way to keep a reality check on inequality voluntarily inside a company.

<comment><USER7> > Is a CEO's productivity worth 100x the lowest paid employee?

No. Not if you want to live in a peaceful society, but we're talking religions again... You are correct, there is no right answer. Views vary based on how much 'socialist' or 'liberal' someone is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> First, here is the link to the actual release: [http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/137...](http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539817895)

Because this was unclear to me initially, this DOES factor in complete CEO compensation (not just salary).

The interesting part is companies will now be required to disclose the mean salary of it's general employees (C-level salaries are already disclosed), it would be interesting to see Google, or any qualifying tech business, give an official statement on employee compensation amounts.

The part I find confusing, it includes seasonal and temporary workers. Target is expected to release the ratio of the CEO compared to the yearly compensation of the thousands of Holiday season workers it hires for 3 months?

Identification of Employees Covered by the Proposed Rule

"All employees of the registrant" would include:

1\. All employees (including full-time, part-time, temporary, seasonal and non-U.S. employees)

2\. Those employed by the company or any of its subsidiaries.

3\. Those employed as of the last day of the company's prior fiscal year.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not really sure what this is going to accomplish.

CEO pay is already public. And this is going to end up on page 37 of a companies 68 page annual report.

And then there is this....

> Under the Securities and Exchange Commission's final rules, companies will > get some flexibility in how they find the median. For instance, they can > exclude 5 percent of their overseas workers when arriving at the number and > use statistical sampling.

Companies can also use sampling to estimate median pay and they only have to recalculate this once every three years.

It looks like a company can cherry pick who they deem to be workers and what they consider pay.

This just seems like Elizabeth Warren trying to make political gains.

Or put another way. Apple releases earnings and we find that Tim Cook has one of the largest wage gaps due to him being paid in stock that is soaring in price and AAPL having so many apple store employees that bring down their median pay.

Are people going to suddenly stop investing in AAPL or demand change because of this? Will anyone notice at all?

<comment><USER10> They should just make those Apple Store employees into contractors </s>

<comment><USER11> Even easier than that. Spin off Apple Store LLC with APPL as the sole member.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> More accurate headline: "SEC Adopts CEO Pay Ratio Rule, Five Years After It Became Law"

"Today's vote comes five years after Congress approved the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which includes the pay ratio rule. The vote also comes nearly two years after the SEC formally proposed the requirement."

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2015/08/05/429628037/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2015/08/05/429628037/sec-to-vote-on-requiring-companies-to-disclose-ceo- pay-ratio)

</comment><comment><USER13> This may backfire.

Over the last 2 years we've been having a stock buyback craze, where corporations can issue unlimited amount of debt and use the proceeds to repurchase stock in an illiquid market pushing the stock to record highs.

Shaming CEOs into lowering their pay may work, but these same CEOs will only be rewarded more in options and stocks which do not have the SEC reporting treatment.

And this will only incentivice them to buy back even more stock, levering up companies even faster, transferring stakeholder value to shareholders while leaving bondholders footing the bill, and assuring of a promptly bankruptcy filing once interest rates rise.

<comment><USER5> I'm assuming this is a ratio of "pay" not compensation, where CEO pay is their salary, and worker pay is salary or total dollars earned. Essentially cash to cash.

If they plan on having equity included, that will complicate things, since you may have variation in vesting schedules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am not sure what the big deal is with this. I vaguely understand why regulators want this to be public knowledge. I have no understanding of why effort is being spent in opposing this.

<comment><USER15> Because putting more items into filings costs money and creates the possibility of liability if anything is off. Think of your tax return. Rigorous legal and financial document preparation is expensive. Large corporations can afford the bloat of thousands of regulatory requirements, smaller companies not so much. These added costs are borne by society in the long run, similar to how airline security regulations sometimes cause tickets to cost nearly two times what the original fare would be. This regulation isn't vital for informing investors of the performance of a company (this kind of ratio can be done by anyone who cares to do so using already available information).

<comment><USER16> Pull the other one: it's got bells on it.

One additional number to be calculated, after the reams of numbers have already been calculated. If your accountant and lawyer cannot get that right, it's time to find new ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the WSJ: CEO Pay vs. Performance Executive compensation is increasingly geared toward results, but some CEOs still got big paydays even when their investors didn't do so well.

[http://graphics.wsj.com/ceopay-2015/](http://graphics.wsj.com/ceopay-2015/)

<comment><USER5> This is total pay, not salary based compensation.

Total pay includes equity grants, which will increase if the company does well, thus will correlate with stock performance.

The total pay can also be manipulated by CEO's targeting short term stock gains over long term growth, which is why more companies are looking at longer vests or clawbacks for equity compensation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What on earth does this have to do with the SEC's charge of fighting fraud any other illegalities?

<comment><USER3> Besides fighting fraud, the SEC's other main purpose is to mediate the shareholder/company relationship, ensuring that people who own a share of a company have their ownership rights respected, and setting procedures for what information they're entitled to, and what mechanisms they can use to control the company's decision-making.

One long-running dispute has been over what mechanisms shareholders should have to exert oversight over the pay structure of the companies they own. There are bunch of proposals, from tweaks to the mandatory reporting rules (what this seems to be), all the way to allowing shareholders a direct vote on executive pay (the so-called "say on pay" [1]). Though you could certainly argue that this particular rule isn't a very effective means for shareholders to get control over executive pay; at best it seems like it will give them an occasionally-useful PR tool to pressure boards into restraining executive pay.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does this political agenda relate to protecting investors? Is the SEC now the department of labor?

<comment><USER19> Investors have a right to know how the company they invest in is spending money. Lots of investors don't exactly like the absurd levels of C-level pay or golden parachutes for failed execs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Meaningless. $1 salary with $100,000,000 worth of liquid securities will skew this ratios.

</comment><comment><USER21> Seems like the most worthless piece of data you could gather about a company.

<comment><USER5> It provides a proxy to whether the management is looking to increase worker morale and productivity for long term gains, or inflate stock prices for short term gains. It also provides a way to compare companies within an industry, to see which might be overpaying management, with stock returns varying accordingly.

<comment><USER21> By median pay of other employees?

OK, so McDonalds is 10,000:25,000,000

Now what?

<comment><USER5> So Burger King has a ratio of 10,000:30,000,000, but it has a lower profit margin. Shareholders can then push for a change to compensation, since their CEO is likely overpaid, or their workers are underpaid.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do reverse-auction sites keep consumers/businesses coming back? - <AUTHOR>

Taking a site like shiply for example, how do they keep the interactions between suppliers and consumers on-site, what do they offer that stops consumers going direct to the supplier? <comment><USER2> Do they have to offer any incentives aside from the simplicity of filling out forms once?

leaky.com gives real-time data as you change your policy. If you want to compare a $250 and $500 deductible, you can see how that affects every insurance provider at once (instead of changing it on all 5 sites individually and manually comparing). That alone is worth going through leaky instead of the supplier directly.</comment>


SpitScript: Transpile rap lyrics to JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/isaaclyman/SpitScript <comment><AUTHOR> A year later, SpitScript is back with:

\- TypeScript annotations everywhere

\- Unit tests (via AVA)

\- Several bugfixes for line comments, block comments, and more

It's more useful than ever.</comment>