How I became a con artist (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2010/11/30/life_as_an_amateur_con/ <comment><USER2> It's funny, but this (seemingly blind) trust is why I like shopping in the Western world. As someone who never abuses it, it makes my life a lot easier.

By contrast, in India everyone's tried every variant of this scam. The net result? Shopkeepers don't accept returns and buying things is a combative experience.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "This is why we can't have nice things".

<comment><USER3> So true. Not even western world, the US. In my travels I have never found a place that is as open and easy to return stuff as America. Even the same company has different return policies depending on the country. H&M has 30 day return for cash with tag & receipt. H&M Brussels will not give your money back, only credit. It might even be only 14 days their I forget.

We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up.

<comment><USER4> _We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up._

Yup. Thanks to the scammers, even REI has limited their return policy: [http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021116265_r...](http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021116265_reireturnsxml.html)

<comment><USER5> Except that REI isn't going from a normal return policy to a draconian return policy. It's going from the most unbelievably lenient and forgiving policy to something that's still far more lenient and forgiving than anyone else offers. I don't think it's _quite_ a fair comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Trust is hugely important in society. If you have to stop and verify every single thing, it's hugely expensive, which tends to make everyone worse off.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_\(social_sciences\)#Economics)

<comment><USER7> I once heard that described as "Trust is a common good," which really rang true to me.

I'd go as far as to say that the first world's biggest asset is the collective trust it has accrued over the centuries.

<comment><USER8> This is a bad way to look at it, because you're saying, inmplicitly, either _sacrifice_ for the "common good" and be good, or help yourself and be evil.

The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest.

So there is an argument to be made for behaving honestly that relies on self- interest instead of calling for self-sacrifice. That is a much more appealing argument, and one I can actually buy into.

<comment><USER9> "The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest."

Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.

Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?

<comment><USER8> I think that what is in a person's self-interest is to find a sustainable, enjoyable way to live that will last a lifetime. There is a lot more that could be said about that, but it's a high-level summary.

The proof of that is looking at man's nature and what life _is_. So all I can do is point in the right direction. To write it all down in a comment would be impossible, plus pointless, because it doesn't prove anything _to you_ until you see it yourself, firsthand, by looking at reality.

> I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and > manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.

I am certain that that's not right. Lying, cheating and manipulating will never be a sustainable mode of living. It keeps you dependent on luck and the whims of others, and eventually you will get caught. It's much better to pick any one of 10,000 honest professions and actually live by your own work. It's better to trade with "all of humanity" and live in harmony with others, than to constantly be at war with others.

> Sociopaths for example.

Being a sociopath would be horrible. (They may not realize that themselves-- because they don't know any different and/or would rather not face the facts.) Why? Because you'd have to completely give up on all the values you get from enjoying other people---friendships, cooperation, and all forms of romantic love. (Sociopaths may outwardly seem like they have some of these, but in reality, everyone is not only their victim, but also a potential threat when the victim catches on to the game.) Plus the more general issues I mentioned above.

> Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise > because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the > premise?

I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.

<comment><USER9> In general I agree with your argument, I just think there are a small percentage of actual sociopaths in the world (I've met one).

> I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the > conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest > actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other > people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to > stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be > good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other > people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in > anyone being good OR happy.

Sorry for not being clear here. I meant the premise is "Trust is a common good" and the conclusion is "sacrifice for the 'common good' and be good, or help yourself and be evil"

<comment><USER8> To answer your question about rejecting the premise because I don't like the conclusion...

I actually agree with the statement "trust is a common good." The problem is, people often assume that esablishing a "common good" is something that requires self-sacrifice from individual people. That's not true in general, and certainly not true in this specific case. Why? Trust is _also_ an individual, personal good. Lying, cheating, and manipultaing people is not a viable way to live a sustainable, happy life.

So, if it's going to be said that "Trust is a common good," I just wanted to add, "... and also a personal good." That's why I said the person's point was a "bad way to look at it." Really, it's just an incomplete way to look at it and possibly misleading, given people's typical assumptions.

Anyway, thanks for the chat and it's nice to know that we have some common ground here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The perverse ethics of the author were apparent from the start "[I operated in a time] before you had to show ID, sign a slip of paper and answer a battery of questions from the always skeptical supervisor." The offended tone of the author is hardly appropriate given that this batter of questions was designed precisely to prevent scammers like the author, and indeed made necessary by people like him.

Anyway, theft is theft whether it's against a large corporation or an individual.

I can understand that people don't feel sympathetic towards large corporations since they never seem to be criminally liable when _they_ break the law. However the answer is surely to enforce the law equally no matter who the criminal or victim is?

</comment><comment><USER11> I had a really hard time reading this, mostly because it's difficult for me to separate out in my mind when arbitrage becomes theft.

For example, in my teens I found a hack in the eBay search algorithm. The algorithm was very simple; it simply scanned the titles. So if I input '32GB Apple iPod Black' it would return everything with those keywords. If, however, I typed in 'iPod' it would return millions of results and be unusable. Not everybody realized this, however, so there were plenty of items just titled "iPod."

I ended up generating a 2-page long search that stared with iPod and negated all non-relevant terms (i.e. 'ipod -headphones -case -protector -battery' etc.). After entering in that term I would be given a page of everything only titled 'iPod,' and could pick them up for $50-100 and flip them the next day for $250-300. That was a good living for a 15-year-old kid.

When my mom began to probe after seeing iPods arriving at the house day after day, she started to question me, and we had a long philosophical discussion about whether or not what I was doing was "right." It was legal, of course, but was it _right?_ \- this was the much more important question in the eyes of my mom. She felt it was unethical and not providing value - I disagreed, and she allowed me to continue and not go against my conscience.

After a few interesting twists and turns the eBay hack turned into a multi- million dollar, off-eBay Broadway ticket brokerage firm. (We scalped broadway tickets at scale.) I provided no real value other than buying tickets at face value a long time in advance, and marking the prices up 3-4x last minute. I justified it by saying wall-street traders don't provide much value either. I let people wait to buy tickets, and let Capitalism decide who would get the tickets instead of who got word of the shows first or who cared the most. I appeased my conscience by convincing myself that I took the risk away from the venues, who could have waited and charged more, and profited thereby, but either didn't know it or were bound into agreements with artists/shows/etc. I still don't know how truthful that was, but eventually I left to try and start something that will actually _benefit_ people, not just redistribute things and make money.

I wonder now if I was on a slippery slope and got off at just the right moment. I've seen a lot of my ticket broker/scalper friends end up trying to swindle casinos, get caught up in credit card fraud, etc; it becomes easy to feel smarter-than-thou when you're making bunches of money off of others' perceived negligence.

But at the same time I'm not the kind of successful where I can look back and say, "I was dumb and broke the rules and made some mistakes, but look, I made it now!" It's tempting to slip back into a world where you're not benefiting anybody and profiting thereby. So in that sense it's hard to separate my motives then from that of the author. Making money while helping people is really, really, really hard.

The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."

<comment><USER8> A seller on an open market quotes the price they _want_ to sell for. They would rather have that much money, than the item they are selling. So it's not victimizing them to make the trade.

But it would be victimizing _yourself_ to _not_ make the trade, and instead tell the other person your inside knowledge.

And it's not dishonest, because in a market, there is no implicit assumption that the buyer doesn't know something the seller knows, on the part of either one.

This is especially obvious in the stock market. If I think a stock is a sell at $X and you think it's a buy, we trade, but clearly one person knows (or thinks they know) something that the other doesn't.

Regarding ticket scalping: People selling tickets know that that's going on. If they don't want it, they will forbid you from doing it, and if you do it, it's breach of contract and subject to legal penalties. If not, go for it. There is no reason to sacrifice your own interests so that people who didn't get in on the sale earier and can't afford scalped prices can have their interests satisfied instead. In other words, don't victimize yourself.

Regarding HFT: If you are market-making, you buy at the best price (giving someone a good deal) and sell at the lowest price (giving someone a good deal). Yes, these people could have matched against each other if they wanted to play the game of predicting which way the market is moving and waiting a few microseconds, but you can also lose at that game, so institutional investors don't want to play it. There are no victims here. I assume this kind of thing generalizes to other forms of HFT, except when people/exchanges actually do cheat (exchanges: people don't let people cheat, that is basically your sole purpose for existing).

> The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a > "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."

You only victimize someone (other than yourself) if you commit breach of contract (implicit or explicit; fraud is a form of breach of contract) or actually use physical force. Otherwise, you aren't.

tl;dr moral of the story: don't victimize anyone (yourself, or others)

<comment><USER12> > This is especially obvious in the stock market. If I think a stock is a sell > at $X and you think it's a buy, we trade, but clearly one person knows (or > thinks they know) something that the other doesn't

Or maybe they just need the liquidity for some purchase they need to make?

<comment><USER8> Sure, but that's beside the point.

That just means they have knowledge you don't have about an even better investment.

Or, they actually need to spend the money (e.g. buy groceries) and they still want to do the trade and appreciate the liquidity, no matter what knowledge you have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I once switched my laptop hard drive with a portable one bought at the store, by removing the portable's case and swapping that drive with my laptop's. I then had the new 500gb one in my laptop and an old 120gb in a new portable housing case. I joked to my friend who was with me that I could just return the now 120gb drive back to the store no questions asked. He told me I was an idiot if I didn't; he didn't think of it as stealing as I did. Unfortunately I don't think that mindset is uncommon with our society. What's worse is being moral can be seen as weak and stupid by those who don't see the long term benefits of having a moral population. (Probably aided by the con man often glorified as extremely clever and smart in media, when often he's just taking advantage of people's good will e.g. Catch Me If You Can, Matchstick Men, maybe 21 and Oceans 11. But people love someone smarter than everyone else so they want to emulate that) On the bright side most of the brighter people I know have good ethics.

</comment><comment><USER14> Pulling a con is very similar to being a hacker (the good or bad kind, your choice). You find weaknesses in a system and exploit them. Finding and exploiting them becomes a rush and pulling the con off can be just as rewarding as the financial gains (or more so). Creating a persona and successfully acting it out becomes almost an addiction.

Back when I was into fraud I was always looking for loopholes and weaknesses. Most of them I didn't exploit because the risk / reward ratio wasn't good enough. But there were still plenty of "good" ones. Store doesn't check serial numbers on returns? Buy a new item and return a broken one in its place. Store lets you do self-checkout on high ticket items? Use stolen credit cards cloned onto gift cards. Mail drop photocopies your ID? Make a fake ID with matching foreground and background contrast so the B&W copy looks black. Get online access to someone's bank or credit card with no additional info? Change the mailing address and request a new card (and PIN).

</comment><comment><USER15> You know anyone could shoot a man in Reno just to watch them die but it takes a real super genius like me to talk at them until they just commit suicide.

</comment><comment><USER16> So apparently people believe when you lie to them if you sound convincing. Frankly I feel I should be disgusted by this kind of behavior, but I am just numb. That numbness makes me sad, where did my innocence go?

<comment><USER17> Simply human nature.

Cultural programming has de-attuned you to this fact because we make laws and social custom that mostly keep these things in check (well, except for those 1% folk).

I'm not surprised, I'm glad I live in a society where it's so uncommon to be scammed that it disgusts you so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Someone who is truly self-interested will strive to live in harmony with reality and with other people, instead of trying to constantly deceive and manipulate.

They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others.

In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't.

Religion and altruism teach that your self-interest (at least in this world) is in opposition to morality. You can either help yourself, OR be good, but not both. The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yeah, get it! Shoplifting is also worthy challenge, though, that I feel the author underrates. Scams and shoplifting are two ways toward the same goal: exiting the store with goods without paying for them or getting caught. Sticking stuff in your pants or purse is a pretty simple move, sure, but it has its subtleties. And plus there's a bunch of complexities to worry about like security tags, snitching customers, loyal employees, security guards, loss prevention officers, and cameras.

<comment><USER19> I'd made a faraday cage with tin foil in my backpack to thwart the tag alarm system, and tested it out on a large retail electronics store. So yeah, maybe it doesn't require the social skills needed for the author's cons, but it did require technical skills.

That said, that was a long time ago when I was a troubled kid. Now I'm a voluntaryist, and I see that stealing doesn't fit with my set of values. Perhaps I picked up some valuable lessons while experimenting with anti- values.

As for the author, it seems that he never really grew out of it. It's clear that he derives pleasure from cleverly conning people. It's a shame, because that mental energy could be used for good instead of what amounts to scummy behavior.

There is so much more pie to be had when you can bake it yourself, rather than having to con it from others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've done this several times while being completely honest about what I'm doing... returning gifts without a gift receipt probably from a different store.

Step 1) Find two employees who are polar personalities. Step 2) Attempt to return the item while being completely honest about what you're doing. (books/software/clothes/whatever) Step 3) Get denied. Step 4) Try again with the second employee and mention how the first employee didn't let you.

<comment><USER21> I don't understand. So the second employee magically helps you because the first wouldn't? To make him jealous or something? What's the con here?

<comment><USER22> The enemy of my enemy; people will do things they shouldn't just because they don't like the other person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I find the fact that the mother who owned the thrift store would just hand donations that were "designer" to her kid immoral enough.

When I donate to a thrift shop, I'm doing so knowing that I'll help people be employed there, and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price.

People who do this stuff always try to rationalize it, but at the end of the day they are stealing from all of us by passing the costs of their behavior onto us through higher prices.

<comment><USER24> >> and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price.

In your mind, does that mean it's immoral for someone well off to shop at a thrift store?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I hope he gets caught one day and has to spend a couple weeks in jail. Grifting scumbag.

</comment><comment><USER26> I noticed a few years ago how much information, and questions companies wanted for returns. Well--now I only buy exactly what I need. It's just not worth the agrivation. In all honestly, I don't like shopping anymore. I'm tired of being photographed when I walk in a store. I'm tired of receipts that disappear if you put them in your pocket.(thermal paper--and yes, I think they know the receipts will disappear, and the customer will forget all their transactions are on a database). I'm tired of lifetime guarantees, but are up to the discretion of the disgruntled Store Manager--Costco--a grey market watch. The most dishonest(stealing the most, internal theft) is usually the Manager; followed by employees. It's a little know secret in Retail Security. The question is why are their employees, and customers stealing so much?

</comment><comment><USER27> There seems to be a suspiciously large dose of "How smart I was to exploit the trusting nature of people" even if he makes it clear that what he was doing was illegal.

If I had to guess, the moral compass is not truly reset - I see a future ether as a CEO or a Wall Street Hedge fund trader for this person.

</comment><comment><USER28> The entire tone of the article is rather off-putting. Through portions of the article there tended to be this sense of having pulled one over on corporate America, when that is hardly reality.

One data point: Nordstroms. They will take everything in returns. For them, customer lifetime value add of a hassle free customer experience outweighs edge cases like the author who take advantage of the system.

I'm sure there were many instances of the author taking advantage of the bureaucracy of large corporations, but that's no particular feat of genius- that's a byproduct of bureaucratic systems.

A writer whose name currently escapes me said something to the effect of, "Love your stories, but never believe them".

</comment><comment><USER29> While it's easy to get shocked at some of the author's behavior, I personally don't think it's out of the ordinary. People lie to save money or avoid blame. Examples:

\- I have a friend who works at an LA Wal-Mart doing returns. You'd be blown away at the things people will bring back. My favorite is a raw turkey post- Christmas that someone didn't cook all the way.

\- People lie to tech support all the time. "Oh I don't know what happened. I never logged in yesterday!" ... actually, the log file says you did.

\- My sister-in-law works at a bank. The stories people will tell to fight overdraft fees are hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is so so sad. I value truth over money.

</comment><comment><USER31> I was waiting for a slightly more meaningful enlightening or moral awakening at the end of this article, maybe some kind of realization that the world isn't full of "good people" and "bad people" but that everyone is capable of basic crimes against one another like stealing stuff.

</comment><comment><USER32> The justification people have for their actions is interesting. The mother thought she was "outfoxing" the rich, the writer gave himself rules to follow. I can feel a little empathy for being vulnerable to tricking yourself like this.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'd be ashamed of being you.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is more like being cheap</comment>


The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-knight-capital-buy-high-sell-low-rinse-and-repeat-ae17fae780f6 <comment><USER2> HackerNoon no longer carries Medium.com articles. Use the article in the dataseries publication that Yury shared.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can also read it here: [https://medium.com/dataseries/the-rise-and-fall- of-knight-ca...](https://medium.com/dataseries/the-rise-and-fall-of-knight- capital-buy-high-sell-low-rinse-and-repeat-ae17fae780f6)

</comment><comment><USER4> 404 for me</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't more failed startups share why they failed? - <AUTHOR>

If 90% of startups fail, why don't more founders of failed startups share the story and reasons as to why they failed? This would both help others uderstand why (even if it's as simple as "We ran out of money") and encourage them not to make the same mistakes again. <comment><AUTHOR> Also timely that this post called "Share Everything" was just posted to the 37 Signals blog: [https://37signals.com/svn/posts/3615-share- everything](https://37signals.com/svn/posts/3615-share-everything)</comment>


American Politics: Bad Boys vs. Mean Girls - <AUTHOR> http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2017/08/american-politics-bad-boys-vs-mean-girls.html <comment><USER2> I think he overstates the importance of protest movements here. Also I am not sure if the "bad boys" or "mean girls" are all that different.

The "Cover Your Ass" principle is the prime directive of survival in the consciously nonresponsive political environment. No matter what happens, it has to be somebody else's fault.

For instance</comment>


With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2012/05/19/153002892/with-eye-on-future-billionaire-investor-bets-on-paul <comment><USER2> Dear Mr. Thiel:

How about throw some money Gary Johnson's way? It's pretty clear that Ron Paul won't be winning the GOP nomination; but Governor Johnson will likely be on the ballot in all 50 states, as the Libertarian alternative to the major party hegemony.

Thx,

Mindcrime

<comment><USER3> The problem with Gary Johnson is that when it comes to the financial crisis he's too close to the status quo. His position is that nobody did anything illegal, so no prosecutions, etc.

That's demonstrably false, and the lack of S&L-like prosecutions is a symptom of governmental capture/crony capitalism, and its consequent moral hazard is something we'll paying for sooner or later.

From that perspective, Ron Paul and/or Bill Still > Gary Johnson.

<comment><USER2> _From that perspective, Ron Paul and/or Bill Still > Gary Johnson._

Yeah, but Gary Johnson > Mitt Romney & Barak Obama. And Johnson will (likely) be on the ballot in all 50 states, probably the only candidate other than Romney or Obama who can make that claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various politicians. The money I donated was not used to mount a serious campaign, but was instead appropriated for other use once the campaign was conceded. I ended up having to vote for Bob Barr. Bob Barr! Fool me twice, you're not gonna fool me again. Paul seems like a good guy, but he's doing more harm than good squandering all these resources that might be better spent on someone who's actually serious about running a viable campaign.

<comment><USER5> Ron Paul will never be president. And he was never going to be president.

It's not just that he's too intellectual and not suave and good-looking enough. It's that he actually wants to run the government. The bureaucracy, the intellectuals, the press, and monied business interests don't want to see a more innovative, more free, and more forward-looking country. They like preserving the power they have just fine, thank you.

And the press, the academy, and big business have enough influence over public opinion to prohibit anyone they really don't like from winning power.

The purpose of sending money to Ron Paul and voting for Ron Paul is to move the Overton Window. [1]

The day that someone like Ron Paul can win the presidency, there will be dozens like him running and he won't seem like a special shining light. The thing that does make Paul special is that he is running when it's impossible to win but still possible for things to change.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window>

<comment><USER6> I'd like to see libertarians admit that most people simply don't like Ron Paul and his policy platform, rather than try and claim it as a conspiracy of the political elite to keep him out.

The political elite, like most of America, don't give two shits about Ron Paul. They're not afraid of him; they ignore him. He's easy to ignore, because he will never be a threat. He will never be president, not just because he doesn't have the charisma to win an election, but because his policies are actively off-putting.

Paul fans like to claim that there are things to ling about him from all sides of the political spectrum. This is true. As a liberal, I like his stance on civil liberties, drug policy, and the like. However, I _hate_ his economic policies, which appear to be crafted under the illusion that the world stopped turning in the 1920s. So while I like some things about him, I would _never_ vote for him. Likewise for social conservatives: while they might like his tax policies, they hate his social ones.

Ron Paul is a perennial also-ran because his policies actively repulse the vast majority of Americans. Deal with it, and stop blaming it on some conspiracy of the political elite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was more interested in when Thiel talked about whether technology growth is decelerating. It was back in March, here's the video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRrLyckg8Nc>

</comment><comment><USER8> How far will $2.5 million go anyway? How will it compare to say $5 or $15 million? Sounds like chicken feed to me (coming from him) ..especially now with the FB IPO a done deed.

What amount (if any) to Paul would it take for him to get kicked off the Bilderberg steering committee?

</comment><comment><USER9> "I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was basically outlawed in the last 40 years — part of it was environmentalism, part of it was risk aversion," he says. "And all the engineering disciplines that had to do with stuff have basically been outlawed one by one."

<comment><USER10> As an engineer myself, this quote illustrates Thiel's ignorance of engineering progress over the past 40 years, and his disregard for the risks posed by industrial-scale experiments on the general public. People like him are precisely _why_ we need environmental regulations in the first place, instead of simply relying on people's common sense and prudence.

<comment><USER9> Neal Stephenson recently wrote an article on how being risk averse is limiting our progress: [http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation- starv...](http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation)

I think there are two sides to this, I want to see more innovation and am willing to live in a riskier world to see that happen faster. A lot of regulation merely locks in present bad forms, in the nuclear world we see that yucca mountain isn't perfect so instead we leave nuclear waste all around the country in "temporary pools" -- where the risk is much much higher that something bad can happen. Unfortunately, when people become risk averse the status quo dominates, I mean who can argue with "that's how it's always been done" vs "I took a chance and it didn't work out, but the status quo was unsustainable."

We've unleashed a monster of bureaucracy that vastly limits the potential avenues of investigation. Feynman, has a great perspective - I got good at math and could do it fast, this means that when I wanted to try something the cost was low - a few minutes or an hour, whereas others it would take a day or two. This allowed me to investigate areas with low likelihood of success, and try out novel ideas. Some of his big discoveries were from that type of work. (paraphrased from memory - couldn't find the story, it's in one of his books.

The problem is that we can directly measure the cost of an accident/disaster, but we don't correctly factor, imho, the cost of stuff that was never created.

<comment><USER10> _[W]hen people become risk averse the status quo dominates..._

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Looking at history objectively, I don't think it can be plausibly argued that technological progress now is slower than it was 60 years ago. And we are taking big new risks on a variety of fronts, including massive experiments in the genetic engineering of worldwide agriculture, smaller but even more dangerous experiments with genetically modified viruses, and experiments in large-scale decentralized automation of large segments of our financial systems, not to mention the ongoing global experiment in CO2 saturation that we are conducting unabated. You can argue for the benefits of all these experiments, but you can hardly say we've become risk averse. In the context of the highly leveraged and interconnected world we are creating, I would argue that we are nowhere near risk averse _enough_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Question: anyone know the largest risk, financially, that Thiel has recently taken?

<comment><USER12> Clarium Capital

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarium_Capital>

(directly related to his Ron Paul support)

<comment><USER13> _Clarium's assets under management grew to $8 billion in 2008 after which a series of unprofitable investments and client redemptions resulted in its assets declining below $1 billion as of 2011_

Ouch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> After reading the headline, and then first seeing Peter's picture in the article, I was expecting to read that he was going to be directly investing in Paul Graham and YC.

Ha.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sorry, but political articles are "off topic".

</comment><comment><USER16> Stupid "bet" by Thiel. If he was truly thinking of the future, he'd be better off supporting Rand Paul not Ron. But a fool and his money...

<comment><USER17> Obviously he doesn't believe that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination. Only an imbecile would believe that and Thiel is not that. The point is that as long as Ron Paul is out there on the political flank of plausible candidates with a small committed support base, the more centrist candidates will tack towards his position to try and capture some of his support.

Witness how Santorum pulled Romney towards more socially conservative positions just by existing. Santorum didn't win, but as a result of his run he pulled the Republican centre towards him.

<comment><USER12> _The point is that as long as Ron Paul is out there on the political flank of plausible candidates with a small committed support base, the more centrist candidates will tack towards his position to try and capture some of his support._

do you have any example to support this claim? Ron Paul isn't running for the first time. Which of his positions got anywhere close to mainstream candidate's agenda previously?

 _Witness how Santorum pulled Romney towards more socially conservative positions just by existing._

Santorum was Romney's runner-up if not outrunning him during several moments.

<comment><USER18> Here's a random example from one of the debates... [http://vote4reason.com/2011/12/11/ron-paul-wins-iowa-abc- gop...](http://vote4reason.com/2011/12/11/ron-paul-wins-iowa-abc-gop- debate-121011-according-to-online-polling/)

"In closing, Rick Perry said he has most learned from Ron Paul's effort to end the Federal Reserve, and why it matters."

In later debates, Gingrich seemed to make similar moves: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCC0vokYHnY>

Not saying Paul was completely transformative, but his take on the Federal Reserve which I think was largely considered "extreme" started to become more of a mainstream GOP topic.

<comment><USER12> Rick Perry? oh boy...

anyway, criticism of Fed from GOP is nothing new [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federal_Reserve_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federal_Reserve_System#The_enactment_of_the_Federal_Reserve_Act)

I'm skeptical Ron Paul had any particular role in reigniting it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite monitor for programming? - <AUTHOR> I have a 2018 13" MacBook Pro that I use at my desk, and I'm looking for an external monitor to accompany it. I wouldn't say that I have poor vision, but I've found that extended use of my existing setup is giving me eye strain--I can see text seemingly well, but it's difficult to focus on it for hours on end. I'd prefer something with more space and lower eye strain. Any recommendations? What's your favorite monitor for programming? Thanks! <comment> tony-allan It's all about pixels. Don't bother with a huge screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

I would be interested in something like 4K (3840 x 2160) or the best resolution your laptop can support.

</comment><comment><USER2> I have one of these ([https://www.amazon.com/LG-32MA70HY-P-32-inch-Monitor- Display...](https://www.amazon.com/LG-32MA70HY-P-32-inch-Monitor- Display/dp/B0755KJ56W\)as) an external monitor for just that. It includes some pretty nice features if you choose to use them, and in my opinion is a fairly good price for what you get.

<comment> tony-allan Perhaps this URL [https://www.amazon.com/LG-32MA70HY-P-32-inch-Monitor- Display...](https://www.amazon.com/LG-32MA70HY-P-32-inch-Monitor- Display/dp/B0755KJ56W)</comment></comment>


All File Systems Are Not Created Equal – Crash Resiliance - <AUTHOR> http://blog.acolyer.org/2016/02/11/fs-not-equal/ <comment><AUTHOR> Note that, in the "Persistent Property" table, an "X" is _bad_ behavior.</comment>


Adobe demos "photoshop for audio," lets you edit speech as easily as text - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/adobe-voco-photoshop-for-audio-speech-editing/ <comment><USER2> I've actually been tossing around the idea of creating a program like this, although for a specific use case.

In Bethesda games (Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout) there are large modding communities adding new quests, areas and plot lines. But one technical and financial challenge for them has always been voice acting. Not only do they have to worry about voice acting new potential characters, but they have no means of writing new dialogue for existing characters.

In Fallout 4, for example, the protagonist is fully voice acted. That means a distinct change between the way the main game feels, and any modding efforts made by the community (barring actually re-hiring the original voice actor for new lines).

I'm envisioning having this tool train on the already provided voice lines in the game(depending on the character in question, that's quite a bit). And then letting mod authors input new dialogue lines to be spit out in somewhat the actors voice.

Lots of problems with the approach of course, not to mention the fact that these are actors and not just voices (there would probably be significant amount of emotion lost). But it would give the modding community such a powerful tool to add new plots for existing characters.

<comment><USER3> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPwFuCL33I8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPwFuCL33I8) but automated, then.

<comment><USER4> I used to love watching mans1ay3r's videos, amazing level of creativity and hard work required to assemble all the voice clips! I can only imagine what hilarity would come from a fully fledged voice-splicing application!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how much better the rendering would be if the audio track were much longer and the software would have more to learn. I don't mean more _words_ for a 1 to 1 match since it's clearly beyond that (pronouncing words that it didn't see), but voice features that weren't in that short track.

Hypothetical question: say it had access to all the episodes from Key & Peele, would the rendering be better to the point you could basically generate an audio track from a script with intonation and all?

It would be interesting if they offered "voice packages" either online or offline so you could just pass text through it and the output would be a Morgan Freeman narration. You'd have a shop for "Cords" the same as iTunes for songs & apps. Maybe game developers will find that interesting, too. Having access to way more voices than they'd have in real life, and on a budget.

Someone could also save their voices for posterity. Many people listen to recordings of loved ones who passed away to remember them. Saving the voice for new content would be something to think about.

<comment><USER6> > It would be interesting if they offered "voice packages" either online or > offline so you could just pass text through it and the output would be a > Morgan Freeman narration.

On that note, should Morgan Freeman be allowed to copyright the sound of his own voice?

My immediate inclination is No, you shouldn't be allowed to copyright a voice timbre because it opens up so many weird possibilities for making even more of a mess of copyright law. For example, what happens if two people happen to have the same voice, or at least, close enough so that Adobe's software can't distinguish them.

But there is a reasonable case to be made that Morgan Freeman's voice belongs to him. If some company profits from having a reproduction of Morgan Freeman's voice in one of their products, maybe they should pay him.

<comment><USER7> Morgan Freeman's likeness - including his voice - is already protected legally, no?

<comment><USER8> If you're using "audio with substantial similarity" to the voice of Morgan Freeman, but using it to create entirely new works... doesn't that create new and interesting collisions between rights of publicity, fair use, transformative works...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I thought it sounded badly cut when he moved wife in the sentence but adding new text was pretty amazing.

<comment><USER9> It did sound like they picked the right things to say. I won't be surprised if the extra words appear in the 20 minutes of training speech. Either way even if it's not as magical as they try to make it its still extremely useful for the voiceover industry.

<comment><USER10> But not so much for the voice over talent.

<comment><USER9> Well another job that will become obsolete I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How long before video and audio evidence will not longer be admissible in court? 2030?

<comment><USER12> Photos are still admissible, despite Photoshop existing for several decades.

<comment><USER13> People were convincingly doctoring photos looong before Photoshop.

<comment><USER14> Communist countries are notorious for making people disappear.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-were-erased- from-h...](http://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-were-erased-from- history-2013-12)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1) Mentioned near the end of the video that it actually required around 20 minutes of audio to start synthesys. Not quite as magic as it first seemed. Still cool.

2) The intonation always matched the initial sample. Give us some filters like "vocal fry", "perplexed", "angry", "wonder" etc and then we'll really have something here.

<comment><USER16> > _Give us some filters like "vocal fry", "perplexed", "angry", "wonder" etc > and then we'll really have something here_

Neural networks can already do style transfer for images. Seems like it should be doable for voice, too.

<comment><USER17> I wonder if you could get interesting results by applying neural style transfer to spectrograms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sounds a lot like this: [https://youtu.be/xzL- pxcpo-E?t=933](https://youtu.be/xzL-pxcpo-E?t=933)

IRCAM has been doing some really cool stuff in this area for a long time. Check out their pages on corpus-based synthesis for example: [http://imtr.ircam.fr/imtr/Corpus_Based_Synthesis](http://imtr.ircam.fr/imtr/Corpus_Based_Synthesis)

</comment><comment><USER19> This sounds waaay better than the Donald Trump text to speech system I've been working on: [http://jungle.horse](http://jungle.horse)

I wish I could chat with their engineering team. I'd love to learn the mathematics and tech. (A lot of it might be patented?)

Is there an equivalent of SIGGRAPH for audio?

<comment><USER20> UIST is one of the premier human-computer interaction tools conferences, so it's the closest that accepts "SIGGRAPH-like" technique papers for audio. Maneesh Agrawala from Stanford has several great papers in this space of audio mixing/editing: [http://graphics.stanford.edu/~maneesh/](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~maneesh/)

<comment><USER21> Top poster may also be interested in ICASSP, which bothers itself more with the algorithms of speech/audio processing than the applications of said processing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If photoshop would give these results, a lot of industries would go belly up.

Nice marketing line, but it's speech recognition which set the begin/end frame in the sample.

I was expecting either "painting" away defects or actually reconstruction a real TTS by using a small sample.

<comment><USER23> The comparison to photoshop seems a silly stretch, but

> actually reconstruction a real TTS by using a small sample

it actually did this in the demo, if I understand what you're asking. It created brand-new words, using the speakers own voice, from a tiny sample size. (If we believe the demo.)

<comment><USER24> At the end of the demo the speaker clarifies that it requires about 20 minutes of speech, and this was a controlled demo so it's quite possible that brand new words were actually not created.

<comment><USER25> Think about what one could do with this tool and a dataset of the speeches of a president or something. I mean, with the amount of speeches our presidents give from candidacy to finishing their term as president, we'd have probably weeks worth of words to pick from. If it's an intelligent system you could use this for so much even if it _is_ simple cutting and pasting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Copied from my comment on an earlier submission on this:

I don't see how the watermarking they talk about is going to succeed in preventing forgeries.

If they're planning to watermark unedited recordings, you have a huge false positive problem because there are billions of hours of legitimate but unwatermarked audio recordings, and will probably continue to be. You can also get false negatives by tampering with a watermark-capable device to get it to watermark something that wasn't recorded from analog. Or you can rerecord edited audio from an analog source and simply claim that your "genuine" recording is slightly noisy.

If they're planning to watermark edited recordings, someone else can implement the same kind of technology but without the watermarking.

<comment><USER27> I doubt their watermarking can survive the analog hole and multiple reencodes.

<comment><USER28> as AnimalMuppet said under me it will survive analog hole quite well, but degrade quality. Look up Cinavia.

Its so bad you can actually hear distortions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> You know this is a good idea when half the commenters already have a half- baked version of this created themselves!

<comment><USER30> Aha, like it was with all the pre- and post-Slack chambered forums with cloud history sync.

Did many of them become a success? Now Microsoft is in on it too, so you gotta wrestle that gorilla.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just imagine what this will do for dubbing anime or any other tv show. It's still scary how this can be abused.

<comment><USER32> What about feeding in an audiobook narrated by a well-known personality (like Stephen Fry), and then using the voice to narrate your own self-published eBook?

<comment><USER31> Maybe this technique will lead to people "copyrighting" their voice. That would be weird word where intonation can be copyrighted.

<comment><USER26> Some people have tried to analyze this as an aspect of right of publicity (e.g. [http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=281...](http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2813&context=flr) but I think there are many other articles on this topic). The right of publicity analysis could be different from the copyright analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Photoshop for audio," seems so obvious, I'm surprised we haven't seen this before. (After all, the underlying technology has been around for a while now.)

</comment><comment><USER34> Joaquin Phoenix is now going to narrate all of my audio books.

<comment><USER35> I doubt this software can figure out which parts of your audiobook should be whispered, which parts emphasized, which kind of accent each character should have, when the passage should be read as a playful conversation, as opposed to a clinical narrative...

A lot more goes into an audiobook then some guy reading 300 pages of text into a microphone.

<comment><USER36> I wonder how long it will be before someone gets it doing intonation correctly. I doubt it's an intractable problem and it probably wouldn't be too hard to turn existing audiobooks into a pretty decent dataset.

<comment><USER35> If you want it to not sound like a comedy of errors, you'll have to wait until we figure out Strong AI that can understand sarcasm in the works of Shakespeare... And be able to carry on a coherent, deep philosophical debate.

The difficulty is not in modulating the voice to create intonation, but in annotating prose with intonation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> if adobe has this working in a demo, rest assured "security service" developed such thing 10 years ago. then you can go back and ask yourselves why osama has been reported dead as early as like 2001, the cia released videos in which he always looked different and why his body was quickly drowned at an unknown location.

go back to sleep, now. everything's alright. great new tech. will help catching terrorists from beneath your bed.

<comment><USER38> Wait. America made up Osama. Killed him in 2001. But quietly so no one would know. Then digitally created new videos of him, all to kill him in 2011. Uh huh</comment></comment>


Mercury Protocol: Communication Platform Built on the Ethereum Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercuryprotocol.com/ <comment><USER3> I read the paper. Still not sure how this solves anything besides transferring wealth from the gullible to the authors:

* Noted are the transactions-per-second limits, but solution is missing behind some handwaving

* Lots of talk of fees for doing things like sending messages and lots of mentions of "premium" offerings. This is not a free messaging app (which means likely nobody will use it and the network effect will not happen. Will you pay anything over $0.00 to send messages?)

* Talk of incentivization of "reading posts" meaning "there will be ads"

* Literally mentions farming user data "users generating behavioural data for large scale analysis"

* A completely ridiculous claim that pseudonymity == privacy

* No talk at all about actual message encryption (you would not want your 1-to-1 messages publicly readable in the blockchain, would you?)

.

And then finally, by the last page it is suddenly clear...they are selling their tokens...

The world makes sense again..

<comment><USER4> I don't know about messaging, but paying per comment would be a really interesting idea. There are a lot of people out there who are very aggressive about posting in tabloid and newspaper comment sections. The comments are usually so argumentative, angry, and spiteful that I have to think that just having the comment itself appear on the page is worth quite a lot to those people.

<comment><USER3> But _YOU_ wouldn't pay to participate in a place where they can do that :)

<comment><USER4> My scenario is just me thinking out loud. Most people don't participate in online discussions. It's a very small part of the population that logs onto the internet to critique news articles and spread their agenda.

I don't participate in that sort of thing at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems like it will do a mediocre job trying to solve many problems rather than solving one problem well.

Don't understand why I need it. Lots of complexity to replicate features in centralized services that I don't have a strong need to be decentralized.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER6> ... but with Blockchain!!

'cos everyone wants a gameable social network where someone could earn pennies from making your experience worse.

<comment><USER7> I still don't understand. Everyone already has a social network where someone earns pennies by making the experience worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I doubt that's going to scale if messages have to pass through the Ethereum blockchain.

Most cryptocurrencies today are limited by their transaction volume capacity because every transaction needs to be distributed to every other node in the network - In other words, the Blockchain workload is serial (limited by processing speed not concurrency) and cannot be parallelized (distributed is not the same as parallelized). It's not possible to have a single blockchain handling more than a limited number of transactions/messages per second - <USER2> is a hard mathematical law, not a hardware resource limitation.

Sure, they can batch messages together to reduce transaction count (assuming they'd be willing to do that) but that only buys a bit of extra time. Looking at this I get the feeling that the Ethereum blockchain is doomed - It will be death by spam.

</comment><comment><USER9> How is this different than Bitmessage?

[https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page)

<comment><USER10> Mark Cuban integration?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Implementation issues around Mecury aside, a "fee-based" Reddit is a worthy experiment. Justin Kan had a similar idea with his Whale App. Get experts to answer serious questions regarding entrepreneurship and be compensated for their time. The market for this exists.

I also like the idea of reputation managed via distributed ledger. Hard coding trust is a raison d'etre for smart contracts to exist and although a personal "integrity score" acting akin to your "credit score" may sound dystopian it also is an interesting experiment.

Anyone recall "Whuffie" from Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom?"

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

<comment><USER12> Check out Steemit: [https://steemit.com/](https://steemit.com/)

It's pretty much a "fee-based" Reddit, where people who post content are rewarded for doing so.

<comment><USER13> Argh. The top post is so full of BS it completely kills any excitement about the platform: [https://steemit.com/joy/@teamsteem/on-the-path-to-a- fairer-f...](https://steemit.com/joy/@teamsteem/on-the-path-to-a-fairer- furture)

<comment><USER14> Dunno, people getting paid by who valued the content sounds pretty good to me. Sure there's hype/BS in promotional type messages... but don't pay for that one.

I'd certainly put more into my posts if I thought that some modest popularity resulted in a few $100.

Seems like micro-transactions were mostly a non-starter because the credit card companies want high transaction fees. Fortunately these days there are alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> zero-x I think this is the antithesis of the blockchain. I think a much better idea is: "Uncensorable Twitter". With how much twitter and Google censor users they find offensive I think a product like that would take off and not be too difficult to build.

<comment><USER15> The main problem with uncensorable platforms is the proliferation of illegal content especially illegal images.

<comment> zero-x Totally, solving that issue is the most challenging thing. A middle ground could be democratized voting where users can vote to keep or remove messages.

<comment><USER16> That invalidates the need for a blockchain. Censorship resistance isn't for popular content.

<comment> zero-x Yeah good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Do blockchain people have any other arguments other than decentralization, security, probable future monetary incentive. These arguments although sound have become cliched, every whitepaper has the same arguments, same methodology, same roadmaps, substitute noun and you have got a whole new whitepaper. It's the lack of ideas of use of blockchain.

Ohh that business is centralized, ohh that guy is making so much money off it, ohh they sell user data, ohh they got hacked !! lets decentralize that business, lets make some crypto money while we can ( and unload it on suckers when crypto hits high ). we got hacked (oops) ...it wasn't us it's the underlying layer under the layer on which our "smart" contracts are based.

I don't care if zuck or anyone is making millions for a centralized product ..he should be he made that product. It was needed that's why people use it. Data isn't safe with centralized network, they misuse it ..heck i have got a choice to share what i want, i can control it. Maybe educating yourself on what and what not to share is better. Networks get hacked ..use 2FA, go MI6. Not everything comes with lifetime guarantee.

what if I don't want to make money off your blockchain protocol or ICO or early adopter incentive or what not.

I am curious to know reason other than mentioned above on why should anyone care about blockchain based protocols/networks etc.

</comment><comment><USER18> Do we really need another Twitter like platform that's based around the idea of "rewards"? Wasn't app.net enough?

Oh, but blockchain...

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there an ICO? If it is an ethereum app, there has to be an ICO. It's the only way

Edit: color me surprised, there is not an ICO. They even want to have working app first. Well that's new. Mostly those apps just write a whitepaper, accept money and then do nothing.

>According to Ryan Ozonian, the CEO of Dust and a leader of the Mercury Protocol, the only way for people to earn tokens at the outset will be through participation. In the future, though, he says there will be an opportunity to purchase them.

Edit2: oh there will be an ICO of course though

>Roadmap

>Phase 1: Dust (Q3 2017)

>We will build version 1.0.0 of the Mercury Protocol, conduct the token sale, and integrate GMT into Dust. The Mercury Protocol will remain closed-source at this stage.

Ummm ok. Good for them I guess. Let's throw more money at broken blockchain protocols!

</comment><comment><USER20> This post made me remember that I had muted "blockchain" on twitter, and my life was much better because of it. Classic example of adding "blockchain" or "token" to something for pure hype.

</comment><comment><USER21> So, the headline doesn't present the value prop very clearly. It should say something like: "Never, meet another troll again" or "Message, with absolute privacy.."

From what i understand based on the article, the value proposition is: 1\. Privacy 2\. No Trolls

I know the above two have been mentioned quite a bit as detractors for twitter. But, personally, I've never had a problem with either one of those.

The question is, How many people would be willing to switch to a new platform, if it meant never meeting another troll again?

</comment><comment><USER22> Blockchains provide false security, and there're big players in the game that either don't understand that or are driving the fad train to the bank.

</comment><comment><USER23> A platform where you pay to send a message become a platfork where only few speak but many just listen

</comment><comment><USER24> What is the difference between an 'oracle' and a server?

</comment><comment><USER25> Has Ethereum been fixed since all those DAO hacks?

<comment><USER26> the problem isn't actually Ethereum, but the tools they provide for writing smart contracts. the exploits are in contracts, not EVM.

that doesn't actually make it better, but it _does_ highlight the problem of using code as an absolute arbiter b/c it can be hard to tell if it describes your intent accurately or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Blogspam, please replace URL with [https://www.mercuryprotocol.com/](https://www.mercuryprotocol.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't realize reporting on things is blogspam . . .

There's a clear link to both the site and the whitepaper in the article.

<comment><USER28> Obviously your effort is appreciated, but in this case it really does seem that the story is the site itself and not your article (which is just 3 paragraphs and contains no new information).

<comment><AUTHOR> That makes sense. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know that HN loves to crap on anything blockchain related, but we live in a time where the POTUS is a Nazi sympathizer living in an alternate universe, so this couldn't come at a better time.</comment>


Niagara Falls is going to go dry – again - <AUTHOR> http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/niagara-falls/niagara-falls-is-going-to-go-dry-x2013-again-20160123 <comment><USER2> "The sun baking down on the rock isn't good for the falls and it also affects the appearance of the falls. I'm very concerned about the long-term effects," Gromosiak said. "I wish they could do it without turning off the falls."

Forget about how much tourism money goes to the Canadian side because the American side is so deficient in any attractions. Forget about pedestrian safety walking across the bridge. Let's worry about how ugly the falls will look with no water for just < 1 year and the color of the rocks BELOW the water changing because of the effect the sun MIGHT have on them.

It's this short sighted thinking that makes me and many others want to leave Western NY and it's this way of thinking that we can't change anything about the city and it's surrounding suburbs for fear of loosing the past. Which is exactly what it is; the past. Many old cities have moved on from their old industrial history. Buffalo and Niagara Falls are still trying to cling to it and for what reason? To preserve history? It stifles innovation; it stifles growth and it restricts money being spent. Only recently (last few years) has money been spent on the downtown water front and it looks amazing. They hold concerts there now; food trucks show up; there are a number of nice restaurants; theres nice green spaces / walking areas. Areas for kids to play - It's great.

Niagara Falls should not be neglected like this.

</comment><comment><USER3> OMG! Is this true?</comment>


87.7% of Android devices vulnerable to hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2015/10/16/android-security-hacking-apple-motorola-lg-google-nexus/ <comment><USER2> MTK6592 phone w/ 4GB RAM straight from china - $120

paying someone to put CM12 on it/firewall your baseband to data-only - $100

VoIP account that allows for zRTP - $120/year

Asterisk or Yate vps on seychelles cloud server - $200/year

Account with Cryptostorm.org for VPN - $100/year

Paying a Nerd to Configure your phone and PBX to work with all of the above - $200

The above is NSA Grade Security.

Total First-year cost: $840

Recurring Cost each year thereafter: $420</comment>


Elon Musk's TED 2017 Full Interview (YouTube Video) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPaYrhUZSYQ <comment><USER2> It's worth watching every single interview to this man, honestly.</comment>


Ask HN: Hide karma everywhere? - <AUTHOR>

Ok, so I have been thinking. Scores have been removed from comments, but you can still see the scores of submissions, your own comments and your avg. karma. If it made sense to hide the comments scores, maybe it makes sense to hide karma everywhere?
It seems like scores used to serve three purposes. 1. Rank comments / submissions; 2. provide feedback; 3. provide a mild incentive to post.
1. You don't need to see the score for points to serve this purpose. You might argue that this is not working anymore anyway, but that should be another discussion.
2. Since you can't see other people's points anymore, the positive reinforcement is already gone, as you have nothing to compare yourself to (are 5 points on a comment great or merely average?), and the negative reinforcement could be replaced by some other metric (display avg. number of comments with a score less than one).
3. This might have worked well when you had a small number of people who made relatively good comments anyway, but as more and more people join, you will also tend to get more people who care too much about internet cred and who are in it only to watch their karma go up. Of course I'm sure there are people who make great comments "for the karma". Still, I would guess that people who care more about karma are more likely to be people who make sub par comments.
As active moderation doesn't seem to be in the cards, it's all about creating an environment that encourages good quality comments and commenters and / or discourages bad quality comments and commenters. Removing the karma game completely could be a step in the right direction in that respect. <comment><USER2> I much rather have scores on comments put back and karma removed completely from the system. Maybe I'm wrong or it's just me but karma just feels like an ego thing. Even more so, I don't get why submitting a post adds to your karma (not even sure if it affects the avg scoring or not for that and it doesn't matter anyway, not the point).

I rather remove karma completely and have people be open to having discussions without fear of their karma avg dropping and more so, I would love to have scores put back on comments for an easier time to read what others thing is worth their upvote.</comment>


How to Pass the Product Manager Interview - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/how-to-pass-the-product-manager-interview-cf27ee936cb3#.l6fakk6ps <comment><USER2> > Prove you can prioritise

Of all the PMs I've worked with personally, this has been the single largest problem. A PM that has patience and knows how to pick and stick to the most important thing until it's done is worth their weight in gold. It takes balls, because priorities always seem to change from day to day, management applies pressure to the PMs to get more done than is realistic, and engineers are fickle and perfectionist and usually slower than they predict. I've seen a good PM walk this line, but people who can do it are rare. I'll take someone who really can do the job of prioritizing well over someone who knows a lot any day.

<comment><USER3> Having worked in a couple, maybe even a few hundred RFP type B2B submissions as the Proposal Writer (aka RFP PM) the one thing that was out of my control and was most frequently the last thing completed was the actual price to put on the submission. So many stakeholders. So much drama. So many times of saying "I understand this needs to be the right price but if you miss the deadline then WE LOSE 100% of possible revenue. SEND IT TO ME NOW...please Sir/Madam..."

Comparatively speaking, the lower on the totem pole, the easier it is to get compliance. It's the higher-ups of the world who, in my opinion, tend to think of themselves as exempt from "getting with the program" until somebody pulls rank. I hate pulling rank but if the chain needs a yank, it's for the project and company, not me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Brain teaser questions don't perform well in studies and should be avoided: [http://qz.com/378228/google-is-over-those-ridiculous- brainte...](http://qz.com/378228/google-is-over-those-ridiculous-brainteasers- but-some-employees-didnt-get-the-memo/)

Google suggests doing behavioral interviews instead (which I've also been trained to do and have gotten good results). Technical interviews and such may be necessary as well, of course.

<comment><USER5> I do a lot of PM phone screens. I don't ask brain teasers but I do ask basic math problems (i.e. drake's equation type problems). They are very good for screening out candidates who won't be able to do the analytical part of the job.

<comment><USER6> 1) That's not a "basic math problem", it's exactly the kind of brain teaser/gross estimation problem this thread is saying doesn't work. 2) You're going to need to explain to me how estimating the number of communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy (or a similar question) is an indicator of how well a person can understand a product's features, tech stack, and customer needs. Unless your product is something related to statistics, you're just screening out people who aren't like you.

<comment><USER5> One variant I ask is 'estimate the number of delivery drivers needed to start a same day delivery service in a city'. Do you think this is a brain teaser or not? This is clearly not a statistics product...

I find PMs need the ability to break down problems into manageable pieces to calculate, and estimate things with lots of ambiguity. How else do figure out whether an idea is viable or not, and worth spending more time on going deeper on?

And I meant to say fermi problems, not drake's equation.

<comment><USER6> Yes, that's an interview brain teaser of the exact variety Google and others have found doesn't indicate much in the way of actual job capability/fit. As someone else in the thread pointed out, anyone can look up the methodology for answering these types of questions in about a minute, and be able to tackle all of the variants easily with little actual thinking.

I agree that product managers need the ability to break down big problems (or requirements/client requests/company direction) into manageable pieces for their team to work on. However, there are better ways to gauge this ability, such as...

\- Ask directly for an example of how they have taken a big problem or assignment and broken it down in the past

\- Give them a real-world big problem you've had recently and ask them how they would break it up into team tasks/user stories/whatever you use

\- Ask them to explain their methodology for determining how long something will take to build or test (ex. some people love planning poker, other people love logarithmic buckets, other people base estimates on experience, and others do something completely different)

Basically you'll get a lot more value out of interviews if you ask directly for experience or process they'll be using rather than trying to back into a skill estimate using a brain game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "...what the product is, what it's used for, what problem it solves and how it solves it"

Have you seen some tech websites? I used to research competitors as part of my prior job and some of the tech websites out there do a really bad job of explaining what their product IS, much less what it DOES.

For those of you here on the flipside, make sure your website explains WHAT you do, and more importantly, WHY I should care enough to call you and give you money. When I'm dealing with potential vendors/technology partners I am 100% more likely to call a company that tells me why I should care up front than a company that's blowing smoke on their website and doesn't want to tell me why I should care until I call them and talk to a sales rep.

<comment><USER8> Good PM interviews I've been in use that as part of the discussion. Discuss the issues with the messaging on the website, ask for clarification where needed to understand the customer and problem, and go from there. You shouldn't just focus on the current as currently exists, but the core problem/vision they're going for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Don't bullshit

If someone simply abruptly said "I don't know" without any follow up, then it would give me serious pause for concern.

By all means, be succinct. Admit you don't know. Ask if the interviewer wants to hear your methodology you would use to get to an answer.

A good PM tailors the message for their audience. My experience set is different from OP, I interview product managers in the non-technical B2B space.

</comment><comment><USER10> > I like to throw in market estimation ... questions

FYI, this is known as a Fermi problem, named after the famous physicist Enrico Fermi. The classic Fermi problem is, "How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?" [1]

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

</comment><comment><USER11> Every company will want a PM that understands their vertical. This isn't as simple as researching, a PM should never interview without using the product and using as many of the competitors products as possible.

Every company wants a PM that is a jack-of-all-trades. This could be any degree of technicality, UX skills, marketing skills, developer skills, design skills, customer success skills, sales skills, and PM skills (prioritization, specs / user stories / strategy / go-to-market / scoping / shipping etc). If you aren't a jack-of-all-trades, pick up some hobbies / books / go to meetups to make yourself as well-rounded as possible.

Every company wants someone that is deep in one of the areas above.

Commonalities between companies are they want someone that is a foot deep across every skill set, and a mile deep on one skill set.

Figuring out where you fall on the scale of things and make sure you find a company that is looking for your exact strengths is the most important thing to pass a PM interview. Screen the company as they would screen you. Once there is a match, then Sam's advice kicks in if they are looking for a Technical Product Manager.

For aspiring PMs, I highly recommend taking a job in customer success as a gateway into product management. You learn a lot about working with customers, prioritization, and should be aligned with seasoned PM's at the company for advisement and mentorship possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER12> As someone else who interviews a lot of PM candidates, I have to admit that my process is quite different.

\- Understand the product, target audience, competition

I don't really care if they understand the product during the interview process.

The purpose of the interview, in my opinion, is to see if they have good product intuition, a well reasoned problem solving framework, strategic insight, leadership qualities, mental horsepower, etc. If these things exist, they can learn about my product, target audience, and competition.

In fact, I actively prefer to not talk about the products I work on because it leads to a biased and loaded conversation. It's a lot harder to impress me when it comes to something I think about every single day, especially when you've only had 3 days to think about it. However, if we both talk about Medium, for example, the playing field is leveled and the candidate will feel more comfortable.

\- Metrics

Metrics absolutely matter. But if you're letting them lead the conversation based on projects they've worked on and just talking about metrics they measured, your results will obviously not be calibrated.

I much prefer to ask a calibrated question that allows me to compare candidates to each other. Ideal questions walk through defining metrics that would dictate success for a certain product, outlining how to run experiments, and then walking through a fictitious metric drop to get an understanding of how they would decompose the problem.

\- Don't bullshit

Agreed. But I would prefer "I don't know, <insert follow up questions to get to an answer>" when possible.

\- Prioritization

Agreed, they should have a good framework for prioritization. I like to couple this with a product intuition question where we're riffing off of each other to come up with solutions to a problem.

\- Engineering Divide

Sure. I think it depends on the role, and if this is ideal for you then that's reasonable.

\- Brainteasers

Brainteasers are easy to game and don't mean anything. Google famously published that brainteasers are not effective at predicting outcomes.

You can test their ability to make assumptions, tackle a problem, etc without giving brainteasers.

</comment><comment><USER13> Are there any other must-read/watch resources for first-time PMs?

<comment><USER14> Start with this list: [https://medium.com/@noah_weiss/50-articles-and-books- that-wi...](https://medium.com/@noah_weiss/50-articles-and-books-that-will- make-you-a-great-product-manager-aad5babee2f7#.pfl5ymn8t)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Haha this is a funny little idealistic article. If any company actually hires like this I'd like to know.

Want the job? This is the real selection criteria at west coast startups:

1) Went to interviewer's school and/or worked at my buddy's startup

2) Drinks the kool-aid? i.e. willing to work 60+ hrs/week below market

3) Previously held self titled "Chief Product Officer" position at "startup" that failed after 3 months

<comment><USER16> Please don't post substanceless, snarky dismissals like this to HN. If you have concrete experiences that are relevant, those would be a basis for a much better comment. But rage-driven overgeneralization is something we want less of here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

<comment><USER17> I am not sure you are moderating this right.

That comment was very insightful. People hiring product managers would now know how some others in the company think if they brought in friends or candidates with inflated titles.

One of my very talented friends quit his job for the exact reason. There are CTOs who do not know the difference between java and javascript. We tried to hire an accountant who had a title "Advisor to startups" after talking to her for few minutes we had to rethink hiring.

<comment><USER16> I disagree that it was insightful; it's a collection of clichés that appear here frequently. The phrase "west coast startups" is particularly spurious, putting down a specific region. Generic comments about idiots are bad enough, but provocations about idiot distribution are worse.

The specific experiences you describe in your comment are another matter. That kind of thing is substantive and can be the basis of a thoughtful comment.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good resources on the Business / Legal side of a UK Startup - <AUTHOR>

Having read a number of articles on how start ups come about I've decided to knock up some code and get something on line soon.  I have a few big ideas, but reading these articles has suggested to me it's best to start with something simple and quick, learn a few lessons from that, and then pursue my real ambitions.  However, I'm anxious about one thing - once I start making money from a site, do I become a business / do I have to contact someone to request a self assessment tax form (even if I only make a couple of pounds from the venture) / what are my legal responsibilities?
I'm guessing there are lots of people in my situation all over the world, and each country will have its own rules and regulations around this sort of thing.  I'm based in the UK, so am particularly interested in the rules there, but if you know of good resources for other countries, please post those also, as there's bound to be a few others in my position dotted around the globe who can benefit.
Thanks in advance,
JB <comment><USER2> The HMRC is a decent starting place <http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/startingup/>, you may also find <http://www.businesslink.gov.uk> useful. In addition you should check with an accountant (perhaps someone you know).

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are great links - thanks for the info :) I'm thinking of looking into accountants after I start to make money; up 'til then I'll just keep records, since I'm assuming that I won't be making enough to cover the costs of accountants for a long time during my experimental phase. Thanks again, JB

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another good thing to know would be any UK bank recommendations, e.g. with a normal website and statements that aren't PDFs and go back to day one. (Amazing in this day that bank websites won't provide a full history to the account holder!)

There's no BankSimple in the UK, but some decent options would be welcome. Heard good things about FirstDirect, but I don't think they do business accounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, looks like a gap in the market. . . though I guess banks wouldn't be too willing to provide an API to third parties who'd offer this service, so it would require a bank to fill this gap, rather than an independent.

<comment><USER3> Big gap if you ask me, because a clean UI would be a desirable and obvious differentiator in what mostly looks like a commodity market.

Yeah, an API would be huge but I think we're a long way from that. Retail banking in 2011==Mobile telephony in 2005.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the cost composition of your startup or website? - <AUTHOR>

* AD (?%)<p>* SEO (?%)<p>* PR (?%)<p>* Website or App development (?%)<p>* Hosting & Domain (?%)<p>* Support (?%)<p>* Other (?%) <comment><USER2> Tom here from Scirra (<http://www.scirra.com>). Our cost composition is:

Adverts (50%)

SEO (0%)

PR (5%)

Website Dev (0%)

Hosting (45%)

Support (0%)

Important to note about SEO is this overlaps with our advertisements campaigns they are not always distinct from one another.

Also important to note is that imo startups shouldn't be paying for SEO

</comment><comment><USER3> My cost composition of <http://notemoz.com>

* AD (80%)

* SEO (0%)

* PR (0%)

* Website or App development (10%)

* Hosting & Domain (10%)

* Support (0%)

* Other (0%)

</comment><comment><USER4> Pardon my ignorance but ... what do you mean by AD?

</comment><comment><USER5> Only thing that costed me was hosting and domain

</comment><comment><USER6> What about product and administrative ? Both are usually large enough to be their own categories, especially compared with something like PR.</comment>