Y Combinator competitor - DreamIt Ventures - <AUTHOR> http://www.cheaprevolution.com/the_cheap_revolution/2008/07/announcing-the.html

<comment><USER2> just looking at the numbers these guys give out $10,000 to 30,000 for 4%-8% of the company. It is not a great deal of money but certainly most of the non-YC companies seem to be giving out more money.

Assuming that quality of YC and non-YC programs is the same, I wonder how much extra 10,000 going to make a difference.

<comment><USER3> They take their percentage out of your next funding round, instead of buying the stock upfront and getting diluted when you do. I don't know if this was deliberate or just a transcription error, but it ends up netting them significantly more stock than the way YC does it: 50-100% more if your next round is a typical VC round.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The amount of awesome things the teams have accomplished prior to DreamIT (from MTV to TechCrunch recognition to by another winning grant money to winning an award via their Ivy League school(half come from Harvard)) seems to be unique!

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure my friend just started working for one of the companies there.

<comment><USER6> Do you know if your friend likes the workspace there?

<comment><USER5> I think he does, I just left a message for him asking if it was actually the company. He is new to the whole start-up idea, he just found out people will pay you to start a company.

If it is actually the place I will let you know.

<comment><USER6> Great thnx...

<comment><USER5> He works for sleep.fm. From his limited description it sounds like they based it off of Yc. It seems they try to get every company to help each other out, so much that they all have a small stake in the other companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, that's right. all the teams get together all the time plus every week they provide support to one team for a couple of hours - helping them with whatever they need. in addition, dreamit hosts dinner events where they bring in successful entrepreneurs and experts to talk about funding, pr, UI, etc. it's been great so far - the founders are entrepreneurs themselves so they're also a good sounding board</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gitlab runs phishing test against employees – and 20% handed over credentials - <AUTHOR> https://siliconangle.com/2020/05/21/gitlab-runs-phishing-test-employees-20-handing-credentials/ <comment><USER2> 250 comment in earlier discussion in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269661)</comment>


Sync servers with BitTorrent Sync - <AUTHOR> http://samglover.net/bittorrent-sync-amazon-ec2/

<comment><USER2> I'm using one of those Intel Atm £2.50 OVH dedicated servers for exactly this. It works pretty well, but I've had issues when syncing files that change often.

I've switched to using ownCloud for documents and other rapidly changing files, and BitTorrent Sync for large folder backups. It's working really really well. ownCloud is 100x better than it ever used to be and installation was a breeze.

</comment><comment><USER3> Something similar can be done using a Raspberry Pi instead of an AWS instance. Just go to your favorite search engine and search for "raspberry pi bittorrent sync". This way you can save that $175/year for an AWS micro instance, and have complete control over your server.

</comment><comment><USER4> BitTorrent Sync cannot be considered secure nor privacy-respecting as long as it is closed source.</comment>


Venezuela president raises fuel price, devalues bolivar to tackle crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/18/venezuela-president-raises-fuel-price-by-1300-and-devalues-bolivar-to-tackle-crisis <comment><USER2> Just to put things in perspective, filling up a gas tank here is still cheaper than buying a two liter coke bottle.

30 liters of gas will cost Bs. 30 or Bs. 180 depending on the type you use. A 2 liter coke costs Bs.500. A McDonalds meal costs around Bs.1000 (Add Bs. 500 if you want fries fries. Fries are imported for some reason. I might be off on the price, I haven't been there in a while.)

And this will not stop the smuggling of gasoline to Colombia and Brazil, since the price differential is still so big. It reduces profits a bit, but it's still worth it for those that can do it (mostly military mafias that control the border).

EDIT: just to expand a bit on the subject, the price has been fixed since 1996 I think. The govt subsidies on gas are ridiculous. The country was losing around US$12500 million a year through the subsidy. Add to that, Chavez started PetroCaribe as a way to "sell" cheap oil to caribbean nations (in exchange for loyalty) that was never paid , or paid with beans,etc.

Now that the oil prices are so low, we have no income.Most of the money that came in to the country was stolen by govt officials (composed mostly of military men) and we have a huge debt obligations and low international reserves. Now it's time to tighten our belts.

Lines to buy food are enormous. You can only buy certain things twice a week if you can find them (according to the last number of your national ID). Medicines are dissapearing.

Maduro is looking everywhere he can to find some money, but there's not much he can do really.

<comment><USER3> > _the country was losing around US$12.50 million a year through the subsidy_

Try $1.7 billion as of 2013 [1].

[1] [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.es%2Finternacional%2F20130515%2Fabci- venezuela-gasolina-201305142039.html&edit-text=&act=url)

<comment><USER2> Yeah , I realized I missed a zero there! Edited. This Forbes[1] article has even worse numbers. Filling up the tank here is something people don't think about. People even tip the gas pump attendant two or three times the cost of the full tank (that's obviously over now).

The reason we are angry is not because we now have to pay a very low price for gas. The reason is that this country had a huge bonanza and it was all stolen and now the govt says its because of the "economic war" the US and allies are waging against Venezuela. Apparently, the fact that the US is extracting shale oil is all just a plan to topple Putin and Maduro. And now that OPEC wants to break the shale oil companies is another evil plan.

It's everyone elses fault that after 18 years of the highest income we've ever had, we now have no money for the rainy days.

[1][http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/26/that- vene...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/26/that-venezuelan- economic-experiment-gasoline-isnt-just-cheap-its-free/#73ba1f193c41)

<comment><USER4> As an American who attempts to keep up with the political situation going on in Venezuela... I know that Chavez stayed in power relatively easily during the oil boom by giving free handouts to many of the impoverished. How does Maduro actually stay in power?

It seems like from the outside, with the violence, inflation, and general instability, that Maduro has failed to keep the Bolivar Revolution viable.

Do you think Maduro, or one of his chronies will eventually be voted out by the populace? I'm genuinely interested in your side of the story as I can't get non-biased news in the US about Venezuela.

<comment><USER2> I hope I'm totally wrong, but I don't see a scenario where Maduro or one of his chronies just gives up on power. I don't see one peaceful scenario where they leave power or try to negotiate some sort of power sharing agreement with anyone.

IMO, the thing to understand here is that it's not Maduro holding on to power, it's the military. They are involved in most of the corruption, drug trafficking, human rights violations,etc in the country. They are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams. That's not something that people give up on easily.

Chavez remained popular while oil prices where high, that way his wacky economic model worked, even when they stole most of the money that was coming in (confessed by Giordani, former Minister of the Economy, one of the architects in this disaster). If Chavez was still alive, the situation would be the same, with the difference that he had a charisma and incredible hold on the population.

Maduro now has to face the legacy of his disaster and he doesn't have the personality, charisma to deal with it. You could almost feel sorry for the guy. He's being pressured from the military side, and now he has to face the pressure from the population that is getting restless.

I don't know what the outcome is going to be like. I think some sort of violent looting escenario is inevitable, by the poorest parts of the population when they really start feeling the hunger. That brings repression by the govt forces and death. Maybe then will we see something similar to Egypt, Ukraine,etc where the military has a limit on how many people the are willing to kill on the streets and they flee.

It's a sad, sad situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a very sensational title, and I'm sick of media companies exploiting:

1) the natural tendency for people to read "by X,XXX%" as "X,XXX times"

and

2) the fact that raising something from nearly 0 to anything that's not nearly zero will naturally be a large percentage increase, even if it is a small absolute increase

Guardian, here's a better, albeit, less apocalyptic and click-bait title:

Venezuela raised gasoline prices from nearly free ($0.02) to about 1/12th of what the rest of the world pays ($0.20), because government oil revenue is down.

<comment><USER6> >1) the natural tendency for people to read "by X,XXX%" as "X,XXX times"

Is that actually a thing? I understood it just fine.

<comment><USER7> Even if it's not to that extent, the bigger number leaves a bigger impression without giving it much thought, even in a relatively trained mind. Once you parse that it says percent, sure, you can deduce that it's describing it proportionally and infer that the price was probably pretty low to begin with, but why do we need to have titles that require this to get the gist of it when we could describe it in a more clear manner from the beginning?

edit: changed punctuation mark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Putting these prices in perspective for western readers should result in laughter: the new price for 95-octane is equivalent to $0.11/gallon using weakest official Simadi FX rate of about 203 VEF/USD, and 5 times less using the black market FX rate. The price previously was 0.097 bolivar/liter or about one-fifth of a U.S. cent per gallon.

And while the price is indeed laughable to western readers, price increases such as this one are all too tragic to the local population which is paid in local currency terms, and for whom this is merely the latest checkmark on the hyperinflationary wall."

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-17/venezuela- devalues-...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-17/venezuela-devalues- currency-37-maduro-announces-62-fold-increase-gasoline-prices)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a positive development. Too little, too late, but a better direction than the "vice president for the economy" Maduro appointed last month who, quite literally, does not believe in inflation [1].

Venezuela owes $15.8bn in debt payments in 2016, has less than $1bn of cash, and holds most of the rest of its reserves in gold [2]. Between 2011 and 2013, fuel subsidies cost Venezuela 7.1% of their GDP on a pre-tax basis [3]. (Note that this "measure of subsidies constitutes a lower bound, as it does not include forgone tax revenues or the cost of negative externalities".) This costs its government more than $1.7 billion a year [4].

Similarly, when one can buy a dollar for 6.3 bolivars from the government and sell it for 500 to 1 000 on the market, it should not be surprising that dollars are seldom to be found. This places an implicit but extreme tax on imports, creating shortages. Curiously for the socialist republic, this tax is levied by private interests as access to dollars at the official rate is rationed to the regime's friend. This was one way Chavez controlled the army. It is also why reducing the market-to-official gap of 100x is so difficult.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy- idUSKBN0...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy- idUSKBN0UL27820160107)

[2] [http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/29/news/economy/venezuela- selli...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/29/news/economy/venezuela-selling- gold/)

[3] [https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp1530.pdf](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp1530.pdf)

[4] [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.es%2Finternacional%2F20130515%2Fabci- venezuela-gasolina-201305142039.html&edit-text=&act=url)

<comment><USER9> Maduro is an idiot, and his crony socialism is destroying a once-great and proud country.

None of these stop-gap measures are going to save things down there, and while Maduro and his fellow party leaders will ride off into the sunset as billionaires (if his people don't kill him first), the poor Venezuelian people will suffer for many years to come.

<comment><USER10> "suffer for many years to come"

Unfortunately it will probably take decades to bring the Venezuelan economy back to a normal.

Almost every local industry is in shambles and foreign investors will need at least a decade to resolve all the claims from past nationalizations and settle all the debts.

Perhaps the worst economic problem is that any entrepreneurial spirit in the country has been crushed. For more than a decade the way to get ahead was to manipulate the system or leave.

Lastly the political institutions are completely broken. Another charismatic strongman could come along or the military could simply take over.

None of this is a quick fix. Things can - and probably will - get worse for years before they get better.

An analogy: If a well functioning economy is like a rain forest with thousands of interacting systems and species in a complex dynamic equilibrium, Venezuela is crappy zoo with most of the animals sick or gone, incompetent and cruel zookeepers and no money for feed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The cheap gas in Vz sounds great but has many horrible effects.

In Brazil you'll zoom about in clean, small alcohol-compatible cars. But in Caracas, people are driving around in 1980 Chevy Impalas spewing thick black smoke. They only recently stopped producing leaded gas. I was reacquainted with the "black boogers" I had not experienced since a trip to India in the 90's.

It's disgusting really, and a shame for country that should have so much going for it.

</comment><comment><USER12> > The official exchange rate used for food and medicine imports will weaken to > 10 bolivars per dollar from 6.3, as of Thursday, while a second rate will be > allowed to float.

How can you have multiple exchange rates on the same currency? That makes no sense. And seems like it would lead to rampant cheating, e.g. shipments of food not being classified as such, or vice-versa, whichever is advantageous at a given time.

<comment><USER2> That's precisely the problem. The govt decides who gets dollars at rate #1 (Bs.10/$) and who gets the other rates. Of course, only govt officials and friends get rate #1.

They establish a company in say, Panama. Their venezuelan company imports food from Panama at rate#1. They claim they imported 1 ton of food, for example, while they only actually bring in half a ton. Or they buy the food at a certain price and they overbill the govt. Expand that to every facet of an economy where EVERYTHING is imported: food, medicine, appliances, cars, tires,etc.

The black market rate is at Bs.1000 per dollar. That's a Bs.990 difference. It's practically a money printing machine! Buy dollars at Bs.10, sell them at Bs.1000, restart the process. Over and over until there's no money left, which is our current situation.

<comment><USER13> But who is selling the government USD for 10 Bolivars? I guess they are swindling from foreign investors trying to do business in VZ.

<comment><USER14> The government nationalized their oil companies which, even at these prices, is still a reliable source of USD that is converted to Bolivars at the official exchange rates of 6.3 to 1.

Importers could then bid for these dollars at different exchange rates to buy medicines and raw materials. As long as US companies like Kimberly Clark, Clorox, PepsiCo, Goodyear and airlines had access to import raw materials at the official exchange rates they could, on paper, be profitable but couldn't expatriate any earnings. They were also motivated by the threat of nationalization.

Recently many of these companies have started to write off these earnings by marking down bolivar holding and writing down assets.

<comment><USER2> The oil company, PDVSA, has always been national. They are practically selling oil at the cost of production right now, so there's no money.

Maduro said yesterday that during January , only $77 million entered the economy from oil sales, down from $37.000mm in January 2014.

International companies have their assets tied up in worthless bolivares here [1], so that's the reason there are no tires for example, and if you find one in the black market, they cost around Bs.70.000. The minimum wage is Bs.13.000, after yesterday's raise.

[1][http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/02/09/goodyear- takes-646m-hit-...](http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/02/09/goodyear- takes-646m-hit-on-venezuela/)

<comment><USER14> The PDVSA didn't have the technical expertise and capital to fully explore and exploit their oil fields. The oil majors had stakes in several projects that were nationalized starting in 2007:

[http://www.reuters.com/article/venezuela-nationalizations- id...](http://www.reuters.com/article/venezuela-nationalizations- idUSN1E79I0Z520111201)

Exxon and ConocoPhillips filed arbitration claims which resulted in an attempt to repatriate PDVSA assets. That resulted in the planned sale of Citgo and may have also motivated the repatriation of gold reserves held overseas (but who knows). Citgo eventually ended up issuing $2.5B dollars worth of bonds which stripped the asset of a lot of it's value.

Ouch on the price of tires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> People, forget about the gas being cheap on Venezuela even still after this arise.

That country is with serious problems for years. For instance, citizens need to be on slow and humiliating lines to buy food, that is limited by government. Recently, government also said that the prices of milk increased because people are drinking it too much.

<comment><USER16> > Recently, government also said that the prices of milk increased because > people are drinking it too much.

Isn't that literally how supply-and-demand is supposed to work.

<comment><USER17> Not exactly. In this case it is the government which is mandating the prices. While market prices would naturally rise due to increased demand, the statement "because people are drinking it too much" does not necessarily denote increased demand.

Market prices are one of the most essential aspects of a healthy economy. It is the lack of market prices which right off the bat dooms any form of socialism to failure. Any time you see large scale, perpetual shortages of any kind you can know there is some form of price fixing or market manipulation going on by the government.

<comment><USER18> You covered demand... But what about supply?

You can have perpetual shortages on the supply side that keep prices up. The entire luxury goods market relies on this, as an example.

I'm afraid I'm not confident in your analysis; seems to oversimplified.

<comment><USER17> >You can have perpetual shortages on the supply side that keep prices up. The entire luxury goods market relies on this, as an example.

You'll have to go into more depth on your example. I'm not sure to what you're referring.

>But what about supply?

Reread the second paragraph in my comment. Generally, when the term "shortages" is used, it refers to supply.

As for the "perpetual shortages on the supply side that keep prices up", I'm not sure you are using the term "shortage" as it is understood in economics. Just because something is not available at a price I prefer does not connote a shortage (as defined in economics). Otherwise the fact that I cannot buy a Lotus car for $10k would mean there is a shortage. However, if the government introduced price controls on Lotus cars so they could only be sold for $10k, you would definitely have a shortage because more people would want them (demand) at that price point but no one would be willing to sell them (supply).

<comment><USER19> Look up Artificial Scarcity.

<comment><USER17> Explain how artificial scarcity could exist in a free market

<comment><USER18> Chanel captures the entire market for Chanel handbags. Their company entirely controls the supply, and they artificially limit the new supply fabricated each year. No other company can manufacture Chanel handbags. Hence: artificial scarcity. Many luxury good companies operate on this premise. Hence my original comment.

<comment><USER17> You are not describing a shortage as defined in economics. Re-read my previous comment.

You are not even describing a monopoly because there are still alternative brands, even luxury brands, which people can buy. Otherwise any brand would be considered a monopoly.

EDIT: used "scarcity" instead of "shortage"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I went to Venezuela years ago, gas was cheaper than water. Now at least they will have desincentives to use their cars. That's good for the environment.

</comment><comment><USER21> Worded differently: fuel is no longer practically free in Venezuela.

<comment><USER22> Closer to: fuel is slightly less practically free in Venezuela, but still unbelievably cheap.

<comment><USER23> It's not quite so "unbelievably cheap" when the minimum wage is $13/month.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/venezuela-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/venezuela- raises-minimum-wage-30-it-s-still-only-13-a-month)

The minimum wage in the U.S. is somewhere around $1,200/month, so a rough comparison (gallon of gas as proportion of income) might be if gas cost $10.00/gallon here.

<comment><USER24> Anyone know more about Cuba's $20 a month _maximum_ wage?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=cuba+maximum+wage](https://www.google.com/search?q=cuba+maximum+wage)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It was (it is?) a common practice to smuggle gas from Venezuela to Brazil, where the prices are relatively high.

[[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/world/americas/07brazil.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/world/americas/07brazil.html)] - old article (2006), but the disparity, at least before this annoucement, persisted.

<comment><USER26> If the price of gas in Brazil is anywhere close to the global market price then this price change will barely make a dent in the profitability of smuggling. From some random internet searching it looks like the price in Brazil is fairly high, $3/gallon equivalent or more.

<comment><USER27> Brazil is absurd with prices, in the other direction than Venezuela, here everything is more expensive than in a first world country, except maybe meat.

Brazil is the only country that is rising gas prices while oil price is falling.

Also, Brazillian gasoline in Argentina is a third of the price of Brazil, this leads to Brazillians going to Argentina to smuggle Brazillian-made gasoline back into Brazil.

Yes, this is "efficient" as it sounds.

Also our gas prices are blamed by economists here as one of the biggest reasons we have a 11% inflation.

And this is all effect of our extremely bizarre and byzantine taxation model (instead of having a single VAT like in other countries, we have multiple taxes that apply to transactions, with each one having a complex set of rules, many of them being mandatory to be included in the price AND be calculated from the price that include them, thus resulting in recursive calculations).

Here is slighly outdated the list of taxes here, from the final product price (ie: a product that costs 100 and has tax of 30%, means that 30 go to the government, and 70 is distributed among the business involved).

      Gasoline: 53%
      Microwave: 55%
      Playstation 4: 72%
      console-ran software: 72%
      console dev kits: 72%
      Bank Interests: 26% (yep, when you pay interest to the bank
        you pay tax on it too!)
      Lamp: 48%
      Powdered Milk: 28%
      Clock: 53%
      Fishing Rod: 48%
      Toilet Paper: 38%
      Water: 38%
      Fish (to eat): 48%
      Cookies: 37%
      Chocolate: 39%
      Leather coat: 82%
      Beer: 62%
      Matress: 28%
      House: 48% (also, every time... if you buy a house, you pay
      48% of its value in taxes, if someone buy from you, they
      will also have to pay 48% in taxes again, leading to a
      extremely rapid inflation in housing prices, leading to a
      extreme amount of homelessness, people needing to rent, and
      power concentration in the hands of the actual home
      owners... for example I once lived in a apartment I rented
      from a single person that owned 60 entire apartment buildings).

Lowest tax I could find: Medicine and chemicals used by cattle ranchers: 13% (no surprise here, the most powerful politicians here are ranchers).

Highest tax I could find: Vodka (and some other distilled beverages): 83%

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> percentages used as click-bait...

-How's the business?

-Great! We've had a 100% increase in visitors in a single day!

-Amazing, how many visitors today?

-two!

<comment><USER29> This is a knee-jerk response and doesn't really apply to the parent. The gas price raise was certainly not an artifact of having few data points or low resolution as in your example.

<comment><USER26> I read it as pointing out that if you take an extremely small number and increase it by a large percentage, the result is still pretty small.

Here, the price of gas has gone up by 6,000%. That's a lot! Except that in absolute terms, the price has gone from $0.02/gallon to $0.11/gallon. I can see larger fluctuations than that just by crossing the street in many places.

<comment><USER24> >Here, the price of gas has gone up by 6,000%. That's a lot! Except that in absolute terms, the price has gone from $0.02/gallon to $0.11/gallon

...It looks like you are missing a factor of 10. 6000% is 60x, so as near as I can tell gas was $0.002 per gallon, and now is rising to $0.11 per gallon.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-17/venezuela-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-17/venezuela- raises-gasoline-prices-for-first-time-since-1996-ikrf0ppn)

<comment><USER26> You're right, temporary brain failure. Looks like it's too late to edit the original, but let the record show that it was really $0.002/gallon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It was almost 0 (from 0.097 bolivars to 6 bolivars)

</comment><comment><USER31> > But even with the rises, Venezuela's petrol will still be the cheapest in > the world, allowing Venezuelan's to fill their tanks with high-octane > gasoline for the equivalent of the price of three beers.

Whose idea was it to compare gasoline prices (heavily subsidized or taxed, depending on regime) to beer prices (heavily taxed, depending on regime)? Big Macs are a much better indicator of PPP.

</comment><comment><USER15> Poor Venezuelans! I hope your corrupt and dictatorial government shall fall, like happened with Argentina.

<comment><USER32> Not sure if you're being ironic, but the "dictatorial" government of Maduro already lost the election. So it already fell.

<comment><USER33> It lost an election, but has entrenched its influence by selecting civil servants and doing other things to keep power.

As Wikipedia puts it: _A little over a week after the elections on 15 December 2015, the outgoing National Assembly created the "National Communal Parliament" with President Maduro stating "I'm going to give all the power to the communal parliament ... This parliament is going to be a legislative mechanism from the grassroots. All power to the Communal parliament".[67] The move was described as an attempt "to sideline and leapfrog the incoming opposition-controlled National Assembly" and that such actions could possibly lead to more destability and polarization in Venezuela for the future.[68]_

<comment><USER2> Yes, he created a parallel assembly. But the "grassroots" and "power to the people" thing is fake. The true power is in the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (Supreme Court). They can now decide on whatever the National Assembly decides. It's already happened, they have removed opposition members elected to the NA , approved a law that the NA didn't approve and will repeal new laws coming out.

After losing the december elections, the old National Assembly (controlled by the govt back then), quickly elected new members to the Supreme Court that they control.

Just to give you an idea of how corrupt this is: one guy (from the govt party) in the NA was running for re-election as a member of the National Assembly. The guy lost the elections. So then he goes back to the old NA, still in session, runs to be a member of the new Supreme Court , VOTES for himself and is now the head of the Constitutional sector of the Supreme Court, which gets to decide on whether the things the new NA decides are legal or not.

Very democratic.

<comment><USER33> Right, Supreme court selection is probably the most influential of the "other things" I was thinking of.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Philip Roth's Newark - <AUTHOR> https://www.city-journal.org/html/philip-roths-newark-15132.html <comment><USER2> There is a memorable rant about Newark delivered by an unbalanced character in _Zuckerman Unbound_.</comment>


Cocoa/Lisp Tutorial  - <AUTHOR> http://tclispers.org/news/cocoalisp-tutorial <comment><AUTHOR> By way of Zach Beane: <http://xach.livejournal.com/242657.html></comment>


Offer HN: Buy the Codebase of my Startup For $100 to Use For Whatever You'd Like - <AUTHOR> https://gumroad.com/l/kPW

<comment><USER2> Looks like it's using SSL to me, however how can I trust a random site asking for my card details, could be an attempt to gain credit card details.....

Maybe a third party, e.g. Paypal, some sort of demo of the application as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment! Gumroad recently raised $1.1M, and my site is available at skimling.com. If you have any questions feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com. If you don't like the codebase after buying it, I'll be happy to return your money to you via PayPal!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's worrysome that you're taking cc details without ssl. A mistake like that really makes me question the quality of the code base.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Thanks for your comment! I bought an SSL certificate off of <http://www.cheapssls.com/>, and it should be working on the payment page.</comment></comment>


Seven Takeaways from the SEC DAO Report - <AUTHOR> https://writing.kemitchell.com/2017/07/25/DAO-Report-of-Investigation.html <comment><USER2> > See SEC v. Shavers, No. 4:13-CV-416, 2014 WL 4652121, at *1 (E.D. Tex. Sept. > 18, 2014) (holding that an investment of Bitcoin, a virtual currency, meets > the first prong of Howey);

That, by the way, is the Pirateat40 Bitcoin Ponzi of 2012.

</comment><comment><USER3> The SEC Report on the DAO isn't surprising, but I would love to see the SEC draw a clear line in the sand by issuing another report on a better token offering that is determined to not be a security.

The ability to fund development of important network infrastructure with a related digital asset is too useful to remain in indefinite legal limbo!

<comment><USER4> Probably nobody has asked for a "no action" letter yet.[1] You can ask the SEC "Is it OK if I do this?" All of those are public record.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/fast- answers/answersnoactionhtm.html](https://www.sec.gov/fast- answers/answersnoactionhtm.html)

<comment><USER3> _The SEC is studying the effects of distributed ledger and other innovative technologies and encourages market participants to engage with us, " said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton_

Then it's a no-brainer to test whether it's possible to make a non-security token that still retains some of the benefits of crypto tokens.

I am working on a crypto token designed to avoid the bad incentives and legal issues with current ICOs that might make a good test case:

* Token provides immediate practical benefit (collaboration on important data using distributed storage, narrowing focus from Sia, Storj, Filecoin, etc) from day one

* Token sold in small tranches over an extremely long time period, ideally at stable price

* No intermediate ERC20 or similar token pre-sale

* Pre-mined tokens (eventually sold) make up small fraction of total supply

For the Howey Test, I think it's most reasonable to aim for either no expectation of profit or no common enterprise.

If anyone is interested in helping test this, contact me!

<comment><USER5> For your own sake PLEASE consult a lawyer familiar with securities law before making declarations that your token is obviously not a security and sufficiently avoids at least one prong of the Howey Test. The SEC is starting to crack down on these activities, so the consequences can be enormously bad for you if you aren't careful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The report also seems to mention buyers violating some Section 5. Does this mean that even so much as buying a token (edit: later found to be a security) could potentially land you in legal trouble?</comment>


Writing Pythonic code pays off - <AUTHOR> http://bobbelderbos.com/2016/07/writing-pythonic-code-pays-off/ <comment><USER2> Interestingly I used to overoptimising my Python code to be Pythonic as in this article but found that what some considered Pythonic was actually a lot harder to understand for other team members.

Want an example, change out the words 'word' and 'palindrome' for something else and tell me if which one is easier to infer the functionality of.

You may be surprised.</comment>


Here comes the game controller from Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/apple-sets-tongues-wagging-with-game-controller-patent-1090299

<comment><USER2> This is purest headline bafflegab. Trawl through _any_ big company's patents and you'll find stuff to set tongues a-wagging.

Also, the reason there's an PS3 like controller in the diagram is because the controller design is immaterial; so their attorney grabbed a basic wireframe clip art of a "video game controller" and dropped it in.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo should do what Apple does when competitors copy designs..

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I like it as a product, I hate that everything nowadays is patented.

This control will allow some serious gaming on iOS and this is really cool for game developers.</comment>


YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki addresses hate speech controversy - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/10/youtube-ceo-susan-wojcicki-addresses-hate-speech-controversy/ <comment><USER2> I'm ok with sites working on de-radicalization by making certain content more difficult to find, but I think we need transparency in all of this. I'm weary of a giant corporation like Google deciding what is "correct" discourse.

The analog I like to bring up is the College Board devising an "adversity" score along with your SAT score. I prefer the College Board come up with a transparent methodology instead of each institution, like Harvard, having an opaque one of their own. In the future I want to see a world where your zip code doesn't determine your outcome, but some changes like this happen at a glacial pace. In a similar light I also want to see discourse become more civil over time with the rebuilding of the middle class.

<comment><USER3> While I agree I think transparency is a hard problem. Just looking at the cat and mouse game that Google has been involved in with its search algorithms and SEO. And that has maybe 20% of the implications towards freedom of speech, politics, conspiracy, and controversy.

Credit scores have a similar rock, paper, scissors game between objectivity, transparency, and oversight.

I think some amount of opacity in the algorithm is going to be required but maybe a published report of actions taken at a 6-12 month lag? That might give opportunity for critical press and course correction in a broader sense without nitpicking every call.

I find it hard to hold Google and Facebook so accountable for addressing these problems personally when we struggle to hold our elected officials accountable for addressing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hate speech is paradox. In the end its boil down to whoever strong enough to force other to comply.

</comment><comment><USER5> Even though this has already been flagged, I'm going to make a second attempt at a "substantive" comment:

The high road would be either A) free-speech-absolutism of publish anything that can legally be published, and take the heat for it, or B) run a family- channel-style platform of heavily curated content, and take full responsibility for all of it.

Since this is Google, and they can never have enough money, they take the weasel route of C) rake in that sweet sweet momo-chan and playdoh-princess cash until the media catches-on, then pivot to the next batch of lucrative slime.

<comment><USER6> They're trying to have their cake and eat it too. Most companies would probably do the same given the same circumstances. It's disappointing but predictable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Crowder is hilarious, and I love seeing conservative youtubers continue to fight the good fight.

<comment><USER8> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not some crazy tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, but it's certainly telling that Wojcicki spoke at Recode (which is owned by Vox) but didn't give Crowder the same courtesy. This just screams conflict of interest (and will only give Crowder more ammunition), but whatever.

Second, it's clear that YouTube, much like Google, et al. are still attempting to keep their classification as a murky "grey area" where they aren't really platforms, but they aren't really publishers, so they can make tons of money, but not seriously answer to the public either. Classic corporatism. And until our representatives in DC really wake up, I can't really fault them for it. Our lawmakers barely understand how adding a friend on Facebook works, and I'm sure Silicon Valley enjoys printing money on the back of this ignorance.

Third, it's incredibly clear that there's an ideologically-liberal slant in tech. I've met both Muslims as well as Christians that were simply afraid of the status quo to speak out even though some of these policies made them uncomfortable. I really wish we could be more honest about this. As a staunch Millian[1], I contend that diversity of thought is a good thing.

Finally, (imo) anyone who seriously thinks Crowder should've been censored/deplatformed is just being unfair. He's pretty offensive, but doesn't really go much further than Colbert, John Oliver, etc.

[1] [https://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html](https://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html)

<comment><USER10> > He's pretty offensive, but doesn't really go much further than Colbert, John > Oliver, etc.

I'm sorry, what?

> Last week, Maza called out the abuse in a supercut of comments Crowder has > made on his popular YouTube channel in the last two years. They include: > "lispy sprite," "little queer," "Mr. Gay Vox," "Mr. Lispy queer from Vox," > "an angry little queer," "gay Mexican," and "gay Latino from Vox."

[https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwn54q/google-says- right...](https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwn54q/google-says-right-wing- youtube-star-can-continue-his-racist-and-homophobic-abuse)

It's been a while since I watched John Oliver or Colbert, I guess I'm missing some information that would make the comparison even slightly accurate?

<comment><USER11> Carlos Maza's twitter and ig handle is "gaywonk". He also speaks with a lisp. He also makes it a point to always point out that he's "queer" and "latino". Calling him those things is not an insult. This is what his whole identity and claim to fame is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Canada has robust, tried and tested hate speech laws. They've also previously said they would start regulating platforms unless they started to "self regulate." It's time.

<comment><USER13> Back in 2007 Christopher Hitchens argued that Canada's hate speech laws are not only immoral but self-contradictory. The motion: "Be it resolved: Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate." Hitchens was fully in favor of that statement.[1]

His argument has three parts.

First, freedom of speech isn't about the rights of the speaker. It's about the rights of people who want to listen to that person's ideas. Every time you silence someone, you are infringing upon the rights of that audience. The audience might not agree. Maybe they want to understand the speaker's ideas so they can refute them. But if you prevent the audience from hearing those views, they can't refute them, and the bad views continue to spread.

Second, censoring requires delegating a censor. But if you follow the first argument, you'll see that a censor decides for you what you are allowed to read or hear. I'm an adult and can decide that for myself, thank you very much.

Third, if you are going to censor hate speech, then you must censor every major religious text. The bible and the quran contain passages encouraging hatred of homosexuals, subjugation of women, and taking of slaves. By our standards, they are utter abominations and any impartial application of a hate speech law would see these books banned.

The oration by Hitchens is his best. He starts off by yelling "Fire!" to the audience, and explains just why the analogy of yelling fire in a crowded theater is a terrible one. (Mainly that it was coined in a SCOTUS ruling that jailed socialists in WWI for distributing pamphlets against US involvement in the war.)

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY)

<comment><USER14> Freedom of speech has always been qualified, and this argument does not change it. At best it succeeds in arguing for free speech restricted to certain platforms, and the hate speech laws still allow for free speech to private audiences.

I'll just refute the points you have summarized here since I have no interest in listening to the entire speech to just extract the argumentative points he makes.

The first argument doesn't make much sense. If I have terrible views but do not want to communicate them it is my right to be silent, but if this argument passes I am infringing on the rights of my potential listeners. If I choose to discuss my views to an exclusive membership, I am infringing on their rights as well.

Similarly, IP and copyright laws infringe on this right since they limit the audience of a work.

Second, just as most people we can agree that certain substances are harmful and should be made difficult to distribute, similarly most people can agree that some thoughts are harmful and should be made difficult to communicate. The question isn't a matter of whether to censor or not, but the degree and topics.

The final argument, similarly, does not pass for general spaces. Christians and Muslims do not think that the more icky parts of their texts should be read by children without appropriate direction. Neither would want a terrible passage displayed out in the open for their children to see. Some may even have an interest in restricting it, so as to prevent a critic appropriating their text to portray them in a bad light. Academics do not think that immoral should be read by children without proper direction.

<comment><USER13> > Freedom of speech has always been qualified, and this argument does not > change it. At best it succeeds in arguing for free speech restricted to > certain platforms, and the hate speech laws still allow for free speech to > private audiences.

I'm talking against Canadian hate speech laws, not YouTube's policies. It would be nice if private companies erred on the side of free expression, but having the government force them to do so is a cure that is worse than the disease.

> The first argument doesn't make much sense. If I have terrible views but do > not want to communicate them it is my right to be silent, but if this > argument passes I am infringing on the rights of my potential listeners. If > I choose to discuss my views to an exclusive membership, I am infringing on > their rights as well.

You misunderstand me. I am saying there are people who want to read or listen to something, and censorship prevents them from doing so. Nobody is saying that you have a right to force people to listen your message or read it. That wouldn't generalize.

> Similarly, IP and copyright laws infringe on this right since they limit the > audience of a work.

Copyright laws are about implementations, not concepts. The argument for free speech is about spreading ideas, not web rips of the latest Netflix special. Copyright laws have fair use exemptions to make sure they aren't used to inhibit people from spreading ideas. That's why I can use a clip of Pat Robertson in a video criticizing his policies.

> Second, just as most people we can agree that certain substances are harmful > and should be made difficult to distribute, similarly most people can agree > that some thoughts are harmful and should be made difficult to communicate. > The question isn't a matter of whether to censor or not, but the degree and > topics.

Considering the cost of prohibition and the war on drugs, this argument seems shaky for you. The cure is worse than the disease! People don't agree on this at all. If anything, it's the "legalize everything" tribe that has been gaining traction. So too it is for free speech. In fact in the US, censorship is forbidden for pretty much everything except leaking classified materials. The concept is called prior restraint.[1]

> Christians and Muslims do not think that the more icky parts of their texts > should be read by children without appropriate direction.

This is not true. I personally know at least a dozen children who have the bible read to them uncensored by their parents. (In one case the father is a pastor.) They all believe that homosexuality is a sin and that women should be subservient to their husbands. They got these ideas from the bible, not from some modern day charlatan.

It's worse for the quran, which encourages people to become Hafiz (one who has memorized the quran).[2] Parents and schools encourage children to totally memorize the quran as it's easier to do when you're younger. Over 100,000 children a year memorize it. This includes the verses about valuing the word of a woman at half that of a man, verses ordering the smiting of the necks of disbelievers (if you wonder why so jihadists behead so often, it's because of that), and verses encouraging marital rape.

If one really believes these books are dictated by the creator of the cosmos, then every word of them is sacred and should be spread as far and as wide as possible. That is what these people do. That is where people like Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi and Ayman al-Zawahiri get their philosophies.

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

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafiz_(Quran)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafiz_\(Quran\))

<comment><USER15> > . This includes the verses about valuing the word of a woman at half that of > a man, verses ordering the smiting of the necks of disbelievers (if you > wonder why so jihadists behead so often, it's because of that), and verses > encouraging marital rape.

If you take them out of context, you can understand any text the way you want. Fortunately, these "controversial" verses weren't seen as such in Islamic history overall, and groups that deviated (the Kharijites for example) were intellectually obliterated, and were known not to be able to defend their incorrect views.

This is not limited to religious texts. Any person with an agenda will find whatever means to achieve said agenda. Twisting words not to mean what they do, making up lies, and so on. We see it all the time today, and throughout history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Conservatives tend to "aversion" as their coping mechanism (at its extreme, this might be labelled "hate") whereas liberals tend towards "connection" as their coping mechanism (at its extreme this might be labelled "greed"). Interestingly in buddhism "greed, hate and delusion" are considered to be the 3 poisons. i.e. clinging to either greed or hate leads to delusion.

Isn't the fact that "hate speech" is a "thing" whereas "greed speech" is not evidence of a liberal bias?

<comment><USER17> I think you are stretching that greed counts as a coping mechanism via 'connection' in order to fit with the buddhist teaching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Social platforms need to be held legally liable for the content they host. Unless you're a "dumb pipe" doing one-to-one comms (email services could get an exemption for spam filters), you're a publisher.

Hire moderators and the editors. If that doesn't scale, then you need to cut back on the user-created content you host.

The content can be shared in other ways via the internet, but networks inside the network shouldn't get a free ride anymore.

<comment><USER19> So how can any new social media platforms or startups ever be able to support all that additional staff/infrastructure?

I hold the complete opposite view. The individual that uploaded the content should be held solely responsible for the publishing of that content. Should the platform receives a request for removal then by all means the onus would fall to them to make that decision. If the content is illegal then the platform should aid law enforcement with whatever information they have on the uploader. I don't believe it makes any sense to pre-filter content unless you're deliberately trying to create an opinionated platform (which btw is fine if that's what you want to do, but it shouldn't be a legal requirement).

<comment><USER20> >So how can any new social media platforms or startups ever be able to support all that additional staff/infrastructure?

Why does it matter if they can? Do we allow unregulated oil drilling startups in the name of competition? There's no particular reason to assume that the platforms that govern our social interactions don't fall into a category of institutions who need to prove that they can keep a grip on their activity.

The quality and civility of public discourse is of principal importance to the health of liberal societies. Social media platforms are not irrelevant places of entertainment, it is becoming increasingly clear that they are the primary space where public consensus is formed. As such, they should be held accountable accordingly and not be treated like some random market provider of cat videos.

<comment><USER19> That is such an odd comparison to draw. Oil drilling is inherently destructive to the environment. Social media posts are not, although you do try to make that argument. The solution to oil drilling destroying the environment is less drilling. The solution to misinformation is _more_ information.

You seem to think that these platforms govern our interactions. When I am specifically saying that they should do as little governance as possible. They are merely the channels by which we communicate.

Edit: Actually I'm saying they should be allowed to do as little governance as possible. I think they should still have to option to filter however they like if that's their intention.

<comment><USER20> >The solution to misinformation is _more_ information.

Sorry, but how is this self-evident? Why is the solution to misinformation not indeed less information, from sources that hold authority and are accountable, well researched, slow enough to be absorbed and reasoned about, and so on?

When exactly was the human brain shaped for a miasma and a stream of low quality information dripping down the Facebook news feed? There is no evidence that this is the case.In fact there is evidence to the contrary, the people most engaged in political news and information are the most easily misled and biased ([https://www.vox.com/2015/6/8/8740897/informed-voters-may- not...](https://www.vox.com/2015/6/8/8740897/informed-voters-may-not-be- better-voters))

>You seem to think that these platforms govern our interactions.

That's not something that I think. Whoever owns our public discourse and our attention _by definition_ governs our interaction, there is no vacuum of governance that companies like youtube can fall back on, it just means they're playing down their influence and responsibility.

<comment><USER19> Actually, I agree with you that as a species we are not cognitively equipped to handle an unrelenting torrent of information. I also agree that well researched and well presented (though not necessarily authoritative) arguments should be held to much higher credibility by the voting populace than random twitter posts. Those more credible arguments should be inherently more convincing for readers.

What I think actually needs to happen is to teach people the appropriate critical thinking and reasoning skills to make that distinction for themselves, rather than force the platforms to make that distinction on their users' behalf. Societal change is a very slow process that happens over generations. Every point in history is locally noisy but on a larger timescale that noise diminishes compared to the underlying trend. I don't think it's necessary to make changes based on the locally noisy timescale as I believe we will eventually reach equilibrium between the volume/quality of information in public discourse and the way the population digests it.

> That's not something that I think.

Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm normally one to see both sides in a situation like this, but this one struck me differently.

YouTube appears scared of extremists. They claim to fear a anti-conservative bias. If by policing blatant bigotry and hate makes you anti-conservative, there may be an issue with conservatism, not your policy.

If mainstream conservatives have gotten to the point where they'd defend blatant bigotry, disrespect, and just down right hateful behavior, and we yield to them, we need a reality check. This type of behavior does not make our society any better, promote a discussion, or spread any kind of well- being.

The same behavior would not be tolerated in many of the community spaces we share: schools, churches, theaters, restaurants. Why do we allow such things online? Why do we allow women to be harassed endlessly with death rape threats on Twitter but not in person? I do not understand. To mistake poor cyber behavior as less important and less influential on our culture may be the gravest mistake we keep making.

There's a good faith, honest, and respectful way to have differing opinions and discuss important topics. But this isn't it, and it's not ambiguous. If we want a world where goodness prevails, we have to stop being scared and start making choices.

<comment><USER22> This is a non-starter until hate is unambiguously defined.

<comment><USER23> Unambiguous definitions do not exist outside of mathematics. Furthermore, modern fascist communication strategies rely on existing within this ambiguity.

<comment><USER22> What constitutes hate?

Should people be permitted to use the word "marijuana" on YouTube? See: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igtLqhX4BCA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igtLqhX4BCA)

Should people be permitted to use the "okay" gesture in videos? See: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwJgr-4j14E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwJgr-4j14E)

Should people be permitted to use a swastika in videos? See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Contemporary_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Contemporary_use)

It seems the fascists are already taking advantage of the ambiguity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If Google aka YouTube doesn't allow Conservatives to voice their opinions on the platform then there's the very real possibility that the president himself may get involved.

As we all know Google is on shaky ground atm.</comment>


Unix doesn't follow the Unix philosophy - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/05/25/unix-doesnt-follow-the-unix-philosophy/ <comment><USER2> I agree with some of OP's points, but I think he could explain the mechanisms at work better. OP quotes the example of the 35+ command-line switches supported by _ls_ , some of which are clear violations of the 'Unix philosophy'. However, he moves on from this to suggest that users actively _dislike_ using multiple tools to complete a task, and prefer a single all- purpose tool even if it results in that tool becoming very complex. So users would rather pass another flag to ls than learn how to achieve the same effect by piping the output from ls to _grep_ , or _sed_ , or what-have-you.

I don't think this is the right way to look at it. Passing in additional flags is the preferred option not because users can't comprehend multiple tools, but because there's no discovery mechanism for finding out that using ls and _grep_ together can achieve a particular outcome. The user's primary reference, the man page, provides no guidance here. Googling might help, as might asking a colleague, but by this point the cost of finding the answer begins to exceed the benefit.

What Unix misses right now is a system to help users figure out how to combine operations. Yes, it's obvious once you know how, but for beginners it's really not obvious at all. The point is that there's nothing inherently difficult about doing things the Unix way, it's mostly a problem of documentation and discoverability. There's nothing that can compete with the single man page listing all of the options for a single tool in one place.

This problem exists at higher levels too. Often web API documentation fails because it only tells you how to use the API in question, when a tiny bit of extra documentation on how to mash that API up with other popular APIs would be much more beneficial. If you want people to adopt your tool, you really need to tell them how to make it work with their other tools.

I guess this is another example of the same principle behind the success of PHP - being 'right' is nowhere near as important as having documentation that tells people how to solve relevant problems.

<comment><USER3> I think I agree with you, that it's (for those who actually do like Unix) a discoverability problem, but then I think that can be helped by simply reducing the number of command line tools. If you have a small set of tools you know extremely well, the pipelines necessary become immediately obvious whenever you encounter a task... I think part of the problem is that many modern Unix commands are non-orthogonal. It would be interesting to look at ways to improve the discoverability of manpages, though, or at least have some kind of well-structured "if you want to X, you could use Y" index.

<comment><USER2> Our main problem is that computers have never been good at making suggestions to users. "It looks like you're trying to..." Clippyism was a disaster, but nobody ever came up with a better alternative. The trend on tablet computers seems to be toward minimalism, solving the problem by reducing the set of possible interactions to something easily comprehended by a user, but with very little scope for creative combination of tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs> follows the Unix philosophy. A lot of legacy has been shed. I can count 13 options to _ls_ , 11 options to _sed_ and just 5 to _sed_.

The standard Plan 9 shell, Rc, is described in mere ~500 lines of manpage, while Bash takes whooping ~5400 lines.

Oh, and there is no `dll hell' in P9 :-)

<comment><USER5> > A lot of legacy has been shed.

An example I remember from the UNIX to Plan 9 command translation page[1]:

        UNIX                       Plan 9

        head                       sed 10q

[1]: [http://www.plan9.bell- labs.com/wiki/plan9/unix_to_plan_9_com...](http://www.plan9.bell- labs.com/wiki/plan9/unix_to_plan_9_command_translation/index.html)

<comment><USER6> Looking at this list I can't really tell why this is supposed to be better. Shedding complexity ok - but getting rid of many shorthands that are there for a reason? It reminds me of how Java wanted to replace printf with a ridiculously complex string formatting system.

<comment><USER7> The point is that "head" on your system is not the same as "sed 10q". There are two different codebases. By default head shows the first 10 lines but you can change it with flags etc. Well why bother when you already have sed to do that?

      head -n 5         sed 5q

For most cases, head is not a shortcut. 10 is just a special case.

<comment><USER6> I agree with that change. I don't with many others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _> Why does ls have dozens of tangled options? Because users, even Unix users, are not overly fond of the first two points of the Unix philosophy. _

No, ls(1) is flexible because the philosophy is to do one thing and do it _well_.

ls(1) lists information about files. That's what `man ls` says it will do, and whichever flags you pass, that's what it's going to do. Providing a lot of control over _how_ exactly it does that is (imho) doing it _well_.

<comment><USER5> > No, ls has dozens of tangled options because the philosophy is to "do one > thing and do it _well_ ".

Do you mean that in order to truly do well its one thing (list information about files), that ls _had to_ incorporate things like these?

          -o      List in long format, but omit the group id.

          -T      When used with the -l (lowercase letter ``ell'') option, display complete
                  time information for the file, including month, day, hour, minute, second,
                  and year.

          -x      The same as -C, except that the multi-column output is produced with entries
                  sorted across, rather than down, the columns.

Some degree of feature creep is probably inevitable, but a lot of the common utilities now seem to lean towards "offer a flag for everything" rather than "do a small number of permutations on one thing; create pipelines for the rest". (Note: These three options are all from OSX's BSD-derived ls. GNU's version is almost certainly more complex still.)

<comment><USER9> > that ls had to incorporate things like these?

Or this bunch:

         -p      Write a slash (`/') after each filename if that file is a directory.

         -r      Reverse the order of the sort to get reverse lexicographical order or the oldest entries first (or largest files last, if combined with sort by size

         -S      Sort files by size

* -p's information is redundant with the _first_ character of the long format

* -S (and -r) are redundant with `sort` (ls -lSr -> ls -l | sort -k5; ls -lS -> ls -l | sort -rk5)

<comment><USER10> -p is immensely useful. Of course it's redundant in long format; it's for using in short format.

-r is also very useful (I use -tr all the time, which I can't immediately see how I'd replace with sort), and while I could replace ls - _l_ S with piping into sort, you seem to be assuming ls will _always_ be outputting one file per line, which is far from its most useful output mode when running it in a terminal.

<comment><USER9> > you seem to be assuming ls will always be outputting one file per line

No, I am assuming a "do one thing" `ls` would be used in long format (or as inode numbers) whenever it need to be worked with, and would be massaged into form by further commands. For `t`, `r`, `S` and a bunch of others you'd ls, sort and then cut/awk/whatever to format into a "short form".

Not that it matters a bit.

Also, I didn't claim these weren't useful, I claimed they were redundant. Which they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The idea that Unix is or should be a collection of small tools is only a corollary to the real point, which is that Unix is not a machine, but a language. A machine can only do what it has buttons for. A language can express ideas that have yet to be thought. They are greater than the sums of their parts. As with all languages, words get expanded and used in ways they weren't intended. This is good. English is messier than Esperanto, and better for it. Unix is a language where merely speaking an idea makes it reality. We call this magic.

</comment><comment><USER12> _It's a lot easier to maintain an orthogonal design when your software isn't being used._

Mentally, I'm translating this to "it's okay to have messy design if your software is used". This is probably the most common excuse for writing bad software.

Some things in Unix really _should_ follow Unix philosophy more closely.

<comment><USER13> I'd rephrase it more like, "Clean design is a means to pleasing users; it's not an end in itself."

When is it okay to get messy? When it's a net win for the user experience.

<comment><USER12> That's exactly what I'm talking about. "Pleasing users" is often used as an excuse for horrible internal design. People cite examples like ls and proceed to conclude that the Unix philosophy is a concept of abstract philosophy not applicable to real life, when they _should_ conclude that there are simply some issues with ls design.

Nearly _every time_ I hear "but it's okay to be messy, because it's real life" or "I must do this bad thing to please the users" the person saying it advocated something that is an insignificant short-term gain for a tiny _subset_ of users at the expense of very significant long-term losses for all the users.

Internal design usually does not affect end users directly, but it has tremendous indirect effects in terms of performance and reliability, which people do care about.

LS is a good example of this. Having some obscure flag might have solved a particular problem in the past, but now everyone has to deal with extra documentation, complexity and bugs.

<comment><USER13> That may be the case sometimes, but not always. Here are some examples of what I think were good uses of messiness:

ls output can be sorted in all sorts of ways with just a few characters of typing, even though it would be cleaner to make people use sort.

grep has a flag for counting lines that match, even though wc is supposed to be used for counting lines.

rm can remove directories with the right flags, even though rmdir is supposed to be the tool for removing directories.

I think those were all net wins for the user, both in the short term and the long term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > It's a lot easier to maintain an orthogonal design when your software isn't > being used. Software that gets used becomes less orthogonal and develops > diagonal shortcuts.

Yep, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Human language is exactly the same way. Irregular verbs, contractions, and slang are all diagonal shortcuts.

There may be a few unneeded adornments to some Unix utilities, I agree. But remember that the `ls -l` that you might have typed in 1980 on a minicomputer running BSD still has the same output as the `ls -l` from a PC running Linux in 2012. That's just awesome backcompat right there.

<comment><USER15> I really liked the phrase "diagonal shortcuts" from the OP. It brought to mind a physical metaphor for what's meant by software having only orthogonal functions: on a college campus they usually pave orthogonal sidewalks, and inevitably you find diagonal paths where students have cut through the grass and trampled it down to bare dirt. It's ugly in some sense, but it's what everyone wants.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, a literal case of voting with your feet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In my opinion this is a superficial view of the problem which misses the fundamental point. The Unix shell tries to be 2 things and suffers as a result. It is a) an interactive shell, optimised for quick navigation and b) a programming api.

The programming api should be as simple as possible, but no simpler, everything should be well structured and in long form and with typed arguments. e.g. 'ls' would be 'listDirectory' and it would take arguments as named parameters. It would also be directly bindable into programming languages (rather than messing around with strings to 'execute'.

The interactive shell would be a program built on top of the programming api (an api which does everything, not posix), and would contain all the abbreviations and implicit type conversions. This would probably create more choice/fragmentation/innovation than currently exists it would be more practical to deprecate commands and arguments.

</comment><comment><USER17> The basic flaw in the Unix philosophy is that the rules 1. and 2. are incorrect. The rules should be as follows:

1\. Write libraries that do one thing and do it well. 2\. Write libraries to work together.

The third rule is correct, because that is what programs essentially are: black boxes to modify input streams to output streams. I think this correction should be followed in the future.

</comment><comment><USER18> Unix is basically a REPL for the C programming language. Its more than a operating system, its actually a development environment. And most of the Unix utilities that you see today are sum total of people trying to solve problems they faced repeateadly. There fore what you see is tiny utilities with a lot options each designed to solve both a operating system and a programming problem. That is precisely what helps people to write almost real looking programs by just sewing commands using the pipe.

I love the all the three points the author mentions, because together they form a a very powerful platform to work with and solve problems.

>>Why does ls have dozens of tangled options? Because users, even Unix users, are not overly fond of the first two points of the Unix philosophy. They don't want to chain little programs together. They'd rather do more with the tool at hand than put it down to pick up new tools. They do appreciate the ideal of single-purpose tools that work well together, but not too strictly.

I don't agree with this. I can tell you that I just love Unix the way it is now. People feel they are messy because,as I said they always keep looking at them as _commands_ and not as small programs that can be used together to solve problems. Most people don't realize this, because they don't know how to use it. It takes a lot of time to mature on the Unix platform. You have to learn what the commands do, then you need to go out and learn how to use them in combinations. Then you need to start learning the Unix way of representing data and transforming data to solve problems.

Like always most people don't realize the fact that data is a actually 'Text'. And not learning how to work with Text/Strings/Data generally creates all sorts of other problems. Although projects which are RDBMS heavy don't encounter them usually. But a lot of projects that are not DB heavy really pass through frustrating patches of time trying to figure out easy ways of representing, transforming and working with Data(Text). The most common format which is heavily abused are XML's. Followed by JSON these days. But in my experience if only they had learned how to use a little grep, cat, head, tail, sed, awk and learned to represent their data properly they would save themselves writing several hundreds to thousand lines of code. This problem is especially prevalent in the Java world. They are plagued with writing endless programs that actually do a subset of what sed or awk do. Its sad, but most people express shock and surprise while shown how their 500 line Java program is actually a one line sed command. Or how a simple awk command actually does what they spent a whole day writing. Not understanding Unix forces you just re implement Unix utilities badly!

Unix utilities were precisely invented to solve these kind of problems. In fact if you find yourself solving a problem a particular way, then ideally you should use a tool that can be programmed that particular way to solve the problem.

A tool like sed is implicitly designed to open files, iterate line by line, provide you with matching, manipulating, counting, printing abilities. It also contains variables to hold data, and do all other kinds of manipulations. If you were to keep writing programs in permutations of logic to perform each of these facilities specifically as needed(Which is pretty common, if your data is in files), you might as well just go ahead and learn sed. Because that will ensure you not just save on writing code, but will also save you time.

Now this is just sed, Awk can go further. It can help you do a lot more stuff. It gives you conditionals, more sharpened regexes, better ways of handling field separated data, variables, functions and much more. Combined with stuff like wc, less, cat, tr, xargs, grep, column etc you really get a full fledged programming language(Without even realizing that you have one :)) in which you can hack real fast without worrying about bugs.

The thing is 'Text' is actually data. And knowing how to play with Text and learning how to manipulate it well helps you solve problems elegantly, quickly and in a far more easier way than writing a specific program for each task.

As a final leap, you mature as a Unix programmer when you learn Perl. Its the King of scripting languages. You master Perl, you begin to truly appreciate the beauty of what it means to be a backend Unix programmer. Its a world whose beauty and power is known to those who program in it. It completes the total Unix equation and suddenly you recieve your enlightenement and realize why despite Unix's messiness it still is the best thing in the world.

Worse is Indeed, Better!

<comment><USER19> Perl is a shining example of OP's complaint - it is the kitchen sink. Sure, it allows you to do a ton of things, most all of which duplicate standard UNIX™ commands (those you'd find in PWB or v7), wrapped in a syntax that makes APL programmers recoil in horror.

The argument the OP is making is that Unix has fallen into doing things The DEC Way, with gigantic monolithic programs that not only perform their obvious function, but have been turned into one of those twenty-pound Swiss Army Knives that look pretty but no-one actually uses, because they're too heavy to lug around. Does ls really need to emphasize its output with color? Better yet, in a default scheme that's often near-unreadable in an xterm that's running with its default colors? (I thank CentOS4/RHEL4 for this stunning example) No, it doesn't. Looking at ls output in a rainbow of colors is just as opaque to someone who hasn't read the man page (and grokked the system config file(!) for ls) as are the old single-character flags (with the exception of '/') that the F option gave back in '81 on BSD. Unix won over VMS, LISPMs, TOPS-20, CMS, etc., and all of those people have migrated to our platform, resulting in the world we have today.

<comment><USER18> Isn't that the crux of why worse is better.

Turns out there is a huge mismatch between real world needs and text books demands of elegance. Tools that seem to be massively monolithic are extremely helpful in solving problems and do them far too well to do them away.

Every time I hear why some programming language is better than Perl, I always see some Utopian dreams being displayed as the only thing that every matters to a programmer and nothing else. In reality there are many competing demands a programmer has. And providing them all generally leads to 'Swiss Army Knife' kind of designs. Because you are trying to provide many things in a package(That is the demand and the requirement at the first place). That sort of design might not be text book elegant, but it is extremely helpful in the real world.

There fore the 'beauty' and 'utility' design goals don't often match. This is the unfortunate problem every programmer to face sooner or later. A programmer has to abide by time, budget and some metric of quality every time.

Alas many of those demands don't lead to goals which may require an elegant design.

In early days of Unix, Lisp programmers used to call the _problems_ Perl programmers solve, itself as stupid. Telling the user why his needs are invalid isn't a nice way to sell things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> this is a troll with very little substance.

summarized as "ls does not follow the unix philosophy", it points out that an example of a tool that doesn't follow the philosophy as close as it could or should. there are exceptions to every rule, what a substantive exposition.

ORANGE ALERT, send out the bubble!

</comment><comment><USER21> Linkbait article with hardly any meat on its bones.

</comment><comment><USER22> Unix followed the unix philosophy just fine. Looking at current "unix-like" software and the huge amount of bloat and cruft isn't a reasonable way to criticize unix. Unix has been obsolete for decades, and the systems that took over (BSDs, linux, GNU) didn't follow the unix philosophy very much (or at all in the case of GNU).

<comment><USER23> > (or at all in the case of GNU).

What did you expect? RMS was a MIT Hacker. Which means that his background was using Lisp, ITS, and Lisp machines.

<comment><USER22> I didn't say I expected GNU to follow the unix philosophy. I pointed out that it doesn't, and that saying "unix doesn't follow unix philosophy" while pointing at GNU tools for proof is absurd.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Ventures' Copious Launches Social Marketplace For The Facebook Era - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/15/google-ventures-backed-copious-launches-a-social-marketplace-for-the-facebook-era

<comment><USER2> This is similar to a marketplace website I co-founded, Lifemall.com.

The relationship between social and commmerce is quite complicated i.e not everyone likes to share their shopping habits with their friends or people with similar tastes.

I think we've seen that with Amazon only recently investing in this space (and they have more commerce data than anyone online) that we're still in the early stages of this.

Which might suggest there's a big opportunity here.</comment>


A recursion example - <AUTHOR> http://fmn.rrimg.com/fmn065/20130308/0020/original_0oRm_63da000011b6125b.jpg

<comment><USER2> _Access to the webpage was denied

You are not authorized to access the webpage at [http://fmn.rrimg.com/fmn065/20130308/0020/original_0oRm_63da...](http://fmn.rrimg.com/fmn065/20130308/0020/original_0oRm_63da000011b6125b.jpg). You may need to sign in._

I guess that's one definition of recursion.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the small to medium size blogs you go to daily? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Maybe not "daily", but very frequently: here is a small selection of some of the small sites on my newsblur newsfeed list: [0]

<http://www.jamesaltucher.com> : Much self-pity, but also sometimes quite funny.

<http://www.astrobio.net/latestnews_rss/news.xml> : Is there life on other planets?

<http://kaygun.tumblr.com/>

<http://www.friday.com/bbum> : Coding, hardware projects, generally interesting.

<http://bestyoucanbe.blogspot.com/> : Insights into the education system in regard to the raising of his neurologically non-typical son.

<http://blog.lmorchard.com>

<http://ex-muslim.org.uk> : Oppression of atheists in the Muslim world.

<http://clojurefun.wordpress.com> : Clojure!

<http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath> : Bad science, denialism.

<http://blog.willbenton.com> : Music, logic, programming, etc.

<http://www.groklaw.net> : Maybe not "small"; detailed analysis of important legal cases.

<http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal> : Web design.

<http://www.holovaty.com/> : "I'm co-creator and co-Benevolent Dictator For Life of the open-source Django Web framework"

<http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones> : Combines talented photography, photoessays, and study of the retina.

<http://lee-phillips.org> : I regularly check my site to see if it's still working.

<http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca> : Language issues; can be amusing or stupid.

<http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie> : Freedom for women in the Muslim world.

<http://math-blog.com> : Infrequently updated, but often great.

<http://www.norvig.com> : See above.

<http://morepypy.blogspot.com/> : Keep track of progress on the pypy Python JIT compiler.

<http://www.realclimate.org> : Climate denialism and research.

<http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/> : They find many new comets (I curate a newsfeed for a planetarium website).

<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks> : The venerable Risks Digest lives on.

<http://intertwingly.net/blog/>

<http://stevelosh.com>

<http://tug.org/pracjourn> : The LaTeX user group publication.

<http://the.taoofmac.com> : Interesting take on technology; not particularly focused on Macs.

[0] Note to "bloggers", etc: if you don't have a newsfeed (RSS, atom) I'll probably forget about your site and never go there again, even if I like it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Security <http://krebsonsecurity.com> <http://www.schneier.com> <http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org> <http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/>

Apple <http://www.marco.org> <http://daringfireball.net> <http://www.mondaynote.com> <http://reverse.put.as>

Programming <http://blog.barthe.ph> <http://herbsutter.com> <http://thedailywtf.com> <http://www.sealiesoftware.com/blog/> <http://mrale.ph>

Other <http://torrentfreak.com> <http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk>

</comment><comment><USER4> Going to blogs is, with the exception of very busy aggregators like Reddit or Hacker News (so, not 'small to medium size blogs'), for chumps. That's why we have RSS!

</comment><comment><USER5> contemporist.com</comment>


How I Became a Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://livelongandprogram.com/2011/07/17/how-i-became-a-programmer/#more-29

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure "I grew up in the 80s" is not a valid answer to "How did you become a programmer?"

I also grew up in the 80s. BASIC was an easy language to start with, I agree. But BASIC still exists today, along with a ton of other easy languages.

The problem is that there are SO many other things to do with computers these days that slogging through learning to program doesn't seem nearly as rewarding.

Some have attempted to address these problems, but I don't think anyone has quite gotten it right yet. (Not that I have any ideas, mind you.)</comment>


Google Fit Closing in 30 Days - <AUTHOR> https://fit.google.com/fit/ <comment><USER2> Should be re-titled to say just the website is shutting down.</comment>


Google search now supports Cherokee - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/google-search-now-supports-cherokee.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> Did anyone else read the headline and get a little confused trying to guess what support Google search can offer the Cherokee web server?

<comment><USER3> Yes. It's a funny/sad reminder - although astounding - that Apache and Cherokee were not, in their origins, a software.

<comment><USER4> sad?

<comment><USER5> Yes, sad in that for a large group of people, myself included, the first thing I think of when I hear the word Apache or Cherokee is not two tribes of Native Americans who lived in North America for thousands of years with a complicated culture and language but instead two webservers that have been in existence for less than twenty years.

I can't help worrying that we geeks may have unwittingly removed a last piece of their national identity by hijacking and replacing the meaning of their name... and (in the case of the Apaches)relegating them to 6th place in a Google search for their own term.

<comment><USER4> Car and aerospace companies went down this path for many years before geeks. I get the feeling the logo for the Cherokee web server probably is not going to be loved by the tribe. Given what has been going on with NCAA teams, I would seriously consider changing it or getting definite permission.

I do wonder why more geeks weren't offended that Google Voice blocked one of tribal community colleges? Perhaps even one used for the name of a product (AT&T never did says which one it was). I can't help but think what would have happened if someone had not lost an opportunity because of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's profound that this was posted by Uncle Sam.

</comment><comment><USER7> Finally!</comment>


Ask HN: How to practise Algo/DS for interviews that are every 2-3 years? - <AUTHOR> It's okay to learn Algorithms and Data structure once and practise questions to be good at it but once you leave practising you forget almost all the details and when time comes to interview for next company, you start to practise all over again to pass the interview which is quite inefficient and tedious.
What strategies do you use to keep up with these interview questions every 2-3 years (assuming you change companies in 2-3 years)? One answer to this question is you keep on practising for eternity to keep your Algo/DS game up, but this means you can never devote your time to learn other fields you might be interested in or to work on your personal projects (assuming you are a full-time working professional and so have limited time to study).
Also if you are not up-to-date with your Algo/DS skills, then there might be a situation that you have been given an opportunity to interview with a great company through Linkedin or something but because you are not practising Algo/DS during that time, you may miss the opportunity.
So, how do you manage this situation where on one hand you want to learn new things but on the other hand don't want your Algo/DS skills to fade away? <comment><USER2> I don't.

First, I've been with the same company for over nine years. Before that was four years, before that was five, and before that was ten.

Second, I seem to live in a different world that most software engineers. (Maybe it's because I'm in embedded systems.) Very few interview questions have been on algorithms - so few that it isn't worth my time to try to "keep current".

</comment><comment><USER3> I read The Art of Computer Programming series in my spare time trying to solve the exercises, seems perfect for what you want or make a past time of going through competitive programming exercises [https://contest.cs.cmu.edu/295/f18/](https://contest.cs.cmu.edu/295/f18/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Spaced repetition: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition)

If you don't actively review this material you're going to forget it. I created my own study guide for data structures/algorithms that I frequently review to prevent forgetting any concept. Every few days, or at least once a week, I'll take a blank sheet of paper and try to write down everything I possibly know about every fundamental data structure, including pseudocode and real code for operations such as searching/insertion/deletion. When I go through interviews I read my notes and do this active recall exercise at least once a day every day. Unfortunately there's no shortcut and you have to actively think about and code this material in order to remember it (if your day job doesn't involve knowing those things).

<comment><AUTHOR> So the gist of it is keep practising atleast once or twice a week and more so when you have interviews. And for the rest of the time, learn things that interests you. Right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can you give some examples of Algo/DS questions you are struggling with? It is hard to give you any advice since you are asking about an incredibly broad topic. Something that always works, and has worked for me, is to learn by doing. That is, by coding up lots of Algorithms and Data Structures.

</comment><comment><USER6> The other answers, especially going trough exercises a good book good advice!

You could also write an algorithm to optimize what you have to refresh and when based on your answers to a set of questions you have prepared.</comment>


My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/7cfywp/my_company_signed_up_for_a_1000year/ <comment><USER2> Everyone likes to blame loose VC money for silly stuff like this, but I have a slightly more nuanced theory about ridiculous office perks:

Office managers/office teams have very few concrete metrics. Beyond a binary "is the office functional" (e.g. are there enough desks, does the electricity work) there is pretty much no way to measure job performance. That's not to say their work doesn't have any impact. Anyone who has worked in a poorly laid out office has dealt with the corresponding productivity drain. However, it's really hard to measure that boost/loss and nearly impossible to accurately attribute it.

The solution is for office managers to do ridiculous but easily quantifiable things like spend money on subscription water coolers, an on-demand smoothie blending machine [0], potted plants that cost $800 [1].

If you are an office worker frustrated by this trend, you should invent some performance metric for office managers and then sell something that improves it. You'll instantly suck up all the VC money going to these other startups.

[0][http://getreplenish.com/#1](http://getreplenish.com/#1) [1] [https://www.leonandgeorge.com/plants/large-desert- cactus/](https://www.leonandgeorge.com/plants/large-desert-cactus/)

<comment><USER3> That $800 plant isn't even a cactus as advertised (much less a desert cactus).

Cactus are native to the Americas. The plant in the photo is a Euphorbia (closely related to the poinsetta sold around Christmas) and is from Africa. It looks like a cactus but isn't related at all.

One way to tell the difference between cactus and these "imposters" is that real cactus have spines protruding from a detachable pad that can be pulled cleanly off (the spines are an evolved leaf and detach in a similar way). The spines of the Euphorbia on the other hand are part of the main body of the plant and can't be cleanly detached.

Probably only a few plant nerds really care, but for $800 they shouldn't call it something it manifestly isn't IMOP.

<comment><USER4> No doubt I'll feel silly for asking but what is IMOP? Google didn't provide any sensible answer.

<comment><USER5> Given the context, most likely "In my own opinion."

<comment><USER4> Aha, thanks. Even though that would be IMOO, you switched the context for me. If the P had been omitted it would have been obvious to me. Perhaps it's just a typo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As I get older, I really wonder why people do this to other people. In this case, I'm talking about the manufacturer of this product. They know other human beings are going to spend a lot of money to use their products? It's important to make money, but at what consequence?

<comment><USER7> It's like evolution. Why does some weird, seemingly useless creature exist? Because it fills some crack in the ecological economy. Someone was willing to buy this piece of shit and that is explanation enough for its existence.

<comment><USER6> I read about apples exported from China, covered in a toxic paint so they look red and beautiful, even though it is harmful, all to make a buck. I just wonder why humans have not evolved to, at a minimum, actually show some caring attitude toward others of their same species.

I think we're all doomed.

<comment><USER8> Red apples usually are coated in ground up beetle to give the bright redness colour. It's considered non toxic. Donno if that's the same as what you're referring to. I think it's called Shellac.

<comment><USER6> I'm talking about a scandal from a couple years ago where apples were submerged in buckets of toxic paint to get a red color.

<comment><USER8> OH, I've not heard this story, got a link??? Unsure what to google for.

<comment><USER6> I think it was a Vice video or similar, undercover at a chinese apple export "factory" showing what they did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Office design is highly vulnerable to bikeshedding. It _seems_ obvious so everyone has an opinion without realising the implications.

I saw a costly office refurb that made everything open plan including the kitchen/breakout area. Within a week there were noise complaints from nearby teams and memos not to hang around, in the space that was literally designed to be hung around in, because open plan is currently fashionable.

</comment><comment><USER10> When I see transactions that don't make any economic sense I tend to suspect kickbacks.

</comment><comment><USER11> This seems to be a Sodastream made to be barely functional.

A Samsung fridge with built in Sodastream seems a far better home for $1000, or even just an actual Sodastream which would leave enough change for a few years worth of flavours.

</comment><comment><USER12> His comments on the radiator grill aren't fair. The temperature of steam won't exceed 100 degrees C which some plastics are fine with. And the downward slope is to stop spilt water dripping inside. The fan (if it's working after that error!) will push the air through enough.

<comment><USER13> Steam can be whatever temperature it wants. There is no 100C limit. Either way, there should be no steam near a radiator.

<comment><USER14> Yep beyond steam as most people know it there is dry steam/superheated steam (in the hundreds if not thousands of Celsius).

A principle that's been used in steam engines for at least a century.

It's horribly dangerous stuff to work with as well, it'll flay flesh straight off the bone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember reading the book, the inmates are running the asylum. Where it talks about how Engineers take things like the alarm clock which just works but we make it over complicated.

<comment><USER15> Nobody forces you to buy the overcomplicated clock.

<comment><USER16> I tried to buy a set of scales the other day and could only find electronic ones. I chose not to buy any of them. But still, I was pretty close.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm a customer of Bevi. I got it for our office after seeing it in another startup.

I think Bevi is pretty great - cuts down on La Croix can wastage at the office.

Some things could be improved: sometimes it runs out of CO2 and everything comes out flat.

<comment><USER18> > I think Bevi is pretty great - cuts down on La Croix can wastage at the > office.

This sounds way entitled.

But there are carbonated water machines that are not "smart" (meaning they aren't online and don't cost an arm an a leg to have a sw button running on a tablet)

<comment><USER19> What's entitled about that? La Croix is just flavored seltzer water, you can buy a 24 pack for $10 at costco. It's not like they have champagne on tap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Things like this make me wonder about our Keurig, which could have been replaced years ago with a Bunn dual burner for less money and probably better coffee. Plus if everybody went to the breakroom at 9, 12 and 3 for coffee, collaboration would improve.

</comment><comment><USER21> Remember stuff like this when you decide to build something yourself instead of subscribing to a SaaS which does the same thing better.

<comment><USER22> Yes, in terms of sanitation like 2500 years ago with that SaaS company called "the Roman Empire."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Something like this showed up in our gym about a month ago. Individuals pay $6.99/month for fancy water. The dismay says "9 bottles saved from landfill".... ouch....

</comment><comment><USER24> Not everything in the world is a problem needing a better solution.

<comment><USER25> The "solution" is a bigger problem then the original problem, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible to do it better...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone made a USB driver for Mac OS 9? - <AUTHOR> I have a "Wallstreet" G3 Powerbook with a broken audio circuit (I can hear very faint, muffled audio when plugging in external speakers, so I guess there is a blown cap or IC in the amplifier).
I have tried plugging in a (modern) cheap USB audio dongle (the Wallstreet was the first powerbook with USB ports). It shows up as a USB device in the OS 9 system profiler but it won't make any sound. So I was thinking I would try and write my own driver extension for OS 9. I mostly only care about audio output.
Are there any old school classic/PPC Mac developers who have attempted such a thing? What am I getting myself into?
Are there any examples out there of open source OS 9 USB drivers (of any kind)? <comment><USER2> I can't speak to the development side of things, but have you tried [https://www.usb-audio.com/download/](https://www.usb-audio.com/download/)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I did, and unfortunately it didn't make any difference :( I guess my $20 USB sound stick is not backwards compatible.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A browser extension for simple font inspection - <AUTHOR> https://fontanello.oktavilla.se <comment><USER2> Hmm, I'd like to like this, but it appears you're just getting computed style. But "computed" !== "used".

To get the actual used font you can get it in dev tools. Explanation here: [https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2013/09/DevTools-a...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2013/09/DevTools- answers-What-font-is-that?hl=en)</comment>