Vagrant: A tool for building and distributing virtual development environments - <AUTHOR> http://vagrantup.com <comment><AUTHOR> This project has been the love child of myself and John Bender (nickelcode.com) for the past 6 weeks. We're both daily HN readers and would like to use this as a starting point to show Vagrant to the public. Specifically, I'd like to open up to any questions and feedback, so that the HN community can get to know Vagrant. Your feedback is extremely valued. Thanks!

A bit of background on this project: I work at a development company (citrusbyte.com) in LA. I see new projects almost every couple months, and I'm often working on multiple projects simultaneously due to work, freelance, and personal projects. Managing the development environments between many projects on a local machine became a huge burden and a coworker once mentioned developing in a virtual machine. I thought this was a great idea, and Vagrant was eventually born from it.

Like I said before, feel free to ask any questions. If no questions, I value your feedback very highly, so please let me know what you think!

Thanks, Mitchell

<comment><USER2> This is so useful!!! I've been doing this manually for a select number of important projects. However, I'm not a Rails dev.

What would it take to work with [language/framework]?

I've skimmed over the docs and here [<http://vagrantup.com/docs/getting- started/setup.html>] it seems like instead of

      rails init

I could run

      django-admin startproject

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course! Vagrant is not specific to rails at all!

The getting started screencast I made shows how to setup a LAMP environment: <http://vimeo.com/9976342>

And the getting started guide shows a rails environment.

Those should get you started on the path to python as well =]

Mitchell

<comment><USER3> Any plans for a repository of boxes? One with a LAMP stack, Rails stack, Django stack etc. I know I can roll my own and use chef there could be a community maintained repository of often used configurations.

Also, in the screencast you use localhost to address the vm. Any way to assign another ip to the vm? In my current setup my vm's have altenative ips.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there are plans for a central repository of boxes, but its not an "immediate future" plan. We'd first like to focus on getting Vagrant as stable as possible on the common-case systems.

Hm, changing the IP of the VM. This can't be done via the Vagrantfile at the moment no. But if you do change it manually, you can configure Vagrant to use that VM with "config.ssh.host"

Mitchell

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-priori I had to read through most of the site before I had a good idea of what exactly this was, but it does sound very interesting.

What about deployment? On the site, you only talk about local development environments. Could you perhaps turn convert a Vagrant project into an EC2 instance for deployment?

<comment><USER4> "Could you perhaps turn convert a Vagrant project into an EC2 instance for deployment?"

That's where Chef comes in. Vagrant uses Chef (<http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home>) for provisioning VMs. It's basically software configuration management (same category as cfengine or Puppet) -- you write cookbooks that specify how a system should be set up (see [http://github.com/opscode/cookbooks/raw/master/nginx/recipes...](http://github.com/opscode/cookbooks/raw/master/nginx/recipes/source.rb) for an example).

If you write your Chef configuration the right way (ie not hardcoding anything to a set of system specifications), you can take the same set of Chef cookbooks you write and deploy to EC2 or any other Linux box, virtual or no.

So with Vagrant you can essentially pass around a virtual machine configuration amongst your team and be confident that the entire team is coding and testing in a near-exact replica of the production environment. Not that this was impossible before, but Vagrant streamlines the process.

I've provisioned 20+ servers with Chef and once you have a solid base configuration you can take your attended time on a full server stack (nginx, memcached, post{gres,fix}, munin... the works, essentially) to less than 10 minutes.

<comment><USER5> It looks like it generates solo.rb and dna.json files based on what's in the Vagrant file, which is pretty cool, and I see there is a single cookbook path relative to the project directory. Is there a way to specify a site-cookbooks path, too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not at the moment. There will be extensive work on the chef provisioning system in Vagrant before the next minor release (0.2), I'll add this to the list.

Mitchell

<comment><USER5> Awesome. This is a very interesting project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems to be a very useful tool, one question though, what was the rationale behind choosing VirtualBox, have you done any benchmarks against Xen or Kvm or other hypervisors

<comment><AUTHOR> VirtualBox was chosen since it is an open source, free choice which is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. It is simply the easiest way for developers to get started with a virtualized development environment.

Neither John nor I are familiar with any other virtualization platform, but making Vagrant modular enough such that this is possible is definitely a good idea for the future.

Thanks!

<comment><USER7> Yes please! I would love to have Xen support included ...</comment></comment></comment>


We can guess your name - <AUTHOR> https://inti.io/oilsjtanalytica/ <comment><USER2> That was a bit disappointing. Even after finding out that I live in France it still only offered me only Dutch names.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could not guess my name either.

<comment><USER4> login to facebook on another tab and then visit the site. it will surely answer your name.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why are command line tools free (as in beer)? - <AUTHOR> I have this thought since a few months, and I didn't find a conclusive answer yet: is there a market for non-free CLI tools?
My work depends so heavily on some command line tools such as jq, grep, httpie/curl, ... that I find it very surprising that I haven't ever seen a command line tool sold for a price. And I implemented enough of my own to know it's not trivial to have a great command line interface.
Three points I consider:
- it's clear that we get A LOT of value from CLI tools
- lot of people are willing to pay for GUI application
- a CLI is just an alternative interface to a GUI
Thus: why don't we pay for CLI applications?
To clarify:
- I'm not talking about donating to support a project
- I'm not saying that we should pay, I would like to understand why we don't have similar markets for CLI than we have for GUI, SaaS, etc <comment><USER2> Because the target audience - developers, system administrator and similarly technically skilled users - by default usually expect software to be free as in beer.

For example, I've talked to quite a few software developers who will gladly admit that IntelliJ IDEA (which comes at merely €499) makes them much more productive but who at the same time keep using Eclipse because it's free.

Jenkins is another example. Maintaining a Jenkins install can be a real headache. Its user experience is, let's say, less than stellar. Still, it's widely used because it's "free".

It's both ironic and unfortunate that often those people who make a living creating software seem to be the most averse to paying for software.

<comment><USER3> > It's both ironic and unfortunate that often those people who make a living > creating software seem to be the most averse to paying for software.

That's probably true with most if not all professions. I imagine car mechanics are also adverse to sending their car to a mechanic, for example.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but they usually aren't averse to buying proper tools if those help them do their job more efficiently.

<comment><USER3> Being able to make or modify the tools is not part of their profession, but it is in our case.

Honestly though, I think you're confusing the issue. At least for me and I imagine some others, the problem is not so much with paying but with being able to completely own the tools by having their source. It gives a guarantee that with enough effort we'll always be able to bend the tool to our will. The fact that open source is typically free is just because it's generally hard to prevent skilled computer users from pirating software which source they have complete control over. So, it being free as in beer is just a side effect of the really valuable fact that it's free as in freedom.

<comment><USER2> Wanting to completely own one's tools is good on principle.

However, with tools such as an IDE that remains largely theoretical because very few users will actually change core IDE code.

Therefore, for all practical intents and purposes it doesn't really make a difference if you own Eclipse or the IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition or a perpetual licence for the IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Edition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paid CLI application has to beat free ones, and that's not happening.

Either the paid CLI applications runs locally, in which case it faces decades of experience and intelligence in the commonly used tools created by present and past computer scientists and professionals, which are all free.

Or it is the front of something much bigger, like AWS CLI, the cli itself is free but the services behind it is not, but that narrowly defined "cli- application" is still free.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Is there a market for non-free CLI tools?

Yes, the most popular example I know of is FileBot[0]. It used to be free; it went commercial a short while back. Many people do indeed pay the yearly (or lifetime) subscription for it.

[0]: [https://www.filebot.net/](https://www.filebot.net/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't FileBot a graphical application?

<comment><USER5> It has a GUI and a CLI[0] option. You need a license to use either.

[0]: [https://www.filebot.net/cli.html](https://www.filebot.net/cli.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having a price, even $ 0.1, puts a barrier to trying, automating and deploying software on many servers.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure there are CLI tools that cost.

Let me give you two: Perforce + Dotfuscator. They have their GUI, but also CLI applications - and you have to pay for them.

In my view, they should probably come after the (or, in companion to) GUI app -- so when you need to automate a task in an application you already use, in that case, it makes total sense

</comment><comment><USER8> There used to be - I remember paying for 4DOS back in the day, also there was a suite of unix like command line tools for dos (and windows) that was for sale, forget the name now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you buy the binary, or a license key that you have to activate somehow? Or something else?

<comment><USER8> I think it might have been shareware - or maybe nagware.</comment></comment></comment>


The Law Factory: explore 300 french bills with Gitlab and dataviz - <AUTHOR> http://www.lafabriquedelaloi.fr/articles.html?loi=pjl12-689

<comment><USER2> @sytse Thanks! One of the display challenges for the git repositories was to display actual dates of the commits instead of the pushes since these commits have to be "simulated in the past" and gitlab was the perfect tool to do that. We hope to be able one day to consider each voted amendment as an individual commit as we did in a previous prototype <[https://gitorious.org/law-is- code/demo_bill_hopital/commits/...](https://gitorious.org/law-is- code/demo_bill_hopital/commits/1ffbfb88a1a9b03cae10d1d0e3455dd69d3dcb92>) but it happens to be a lot more complex than anticipated because diffs between two texts are in fact more than just what the voted amendments propose because of "legistic" modifications at each step. Maybe with another release ;)

<comment><USER3> Awesome, glad to hear that GitLab was a good tool for this. Please let us know if we can help in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> GitLab B.V. CEO here, very cool project, it shows the potential impact of distributed version control on the lawmaking process. I had to look twice to see what this was based on but if you click on the 'Git' link in the top right you go to a source url like [http://git.lafabriquedelaloi.fr/parlement/pjl12-689/](http://git.lafabriquedelaloi.fr/parlement/pjl12-689/)

</comment><comment><USER4> A few years ago I envisioned generating a git repo by scraping légifrance, not unlike the unix history repo[0]. Nice to see such things come into fruition.

[0]: [https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history- repo](https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I find out if I'm infringing copyrights? - <AUTHOR>

I'm setting up a webapp that will play and organize clips of old musical recordings for playback and analysis, and maybe some newer ones.<p>How do I find out if this is legal before investing time and money into this? <comment><USER2> Here is the RIAA's position:

"Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn't resold. Online piracy can now also include certain uses of "streaming" technologies from the Internet. Because of the nature of the theft, the damage is not always easy to calculate but not hard to envision."

Source: [http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=pira...](http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_details_online)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it wise to contact the RIAA and ask them if what I'm doing is legitimate?

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't contact the RIAA, they have a notoriously bad reputation (assuming you could actually get to anybody reasonable).

I'd go the route of the current mp3 search engines. Do some research on Fair Use Copyright and DMCA. Also check out the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).

<comment><AUTHOR> good suggestion. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Talk with a lawyer. Some things are under copyright, some aren't, and in some cases it isn't clear, for various definitions of "not clear".

Gather your content appropriately.

Also, find out what your obligations are if someone brings a complaint.

Design your processes appropriately.

</comment><comment><USER5> The way the system works now, is if some large business interest says you're infringing, you won't have the power or money to fight them.

Great system we got going here.

</comment><comment><USER6> Lawyer?

Also, if the music clips are newer than "ancient" you're probably infringing.</comment>


Being An Influential Person - 6 HUGE Pointers - <AUTHOR> http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/job-interview-preparation-061909?click=main_sr

<comment><AUTHOR> One more thing to add: NEVER underestimate the importance of body language. Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Think George Clooney in the Oceans movies... be a force when you walk into a room.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any crowd-sourced AI project? - <AUTHOR>

I was thinking about this, and I've love to know if there is any project already running.
Of course I'm not talking about the kind of project that tries to emulate the brain, but something like a chatbot powered by the community — à la wikipedia — where users can input the "inputs and answers".
I know there's something called AIML, but doesn't seem very user friendly. <comment><USER2> I don't know of anything that does _exactly_ that, but there are certainly various AI projects out there that crowd-source _some_ aspects, like coding if nothing else (counting all of the various OSS AI/ML related projects).

I think something like OpenCyc gets closer to what you're looking for, or maybe a project like OpenWIMS. Neither of those has a "chatbot" aspect though.

That said, I have recently been toying with the idea of trying to build an "open source Watson-like" system, as a platform to learn more about natural language understanding, and some other AI topics. If you're interested, shoot me an email and I'll loop you in on that.

Short-term, I'm just working on re-implementing the "ArrowSmith" Literature Based Discovery system as an intermediate learning project. That's OSS as well, and if you'd like to take a look, have at it. [https://github.com/fogbeam/arrowsmith](https://github.com/fogbeam/arrowsmith)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.cyc.com/platform/opencyc](http://www.cyc.com/platform/opencyc)</comment>


Scala 2.8.0 RC4 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.scala-lang.org/node/6668

<comment><USER2> All of these Scala "RC" release announcements are pretty worthless. They say nothing at all about what's getting fixed in each, they just repeat the same general Scala 2.8.0 feature set.

Edit: also, if you read the mailing list, people are already running into problems with RC4.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you, it's frustrating.</comment></comment>


U.S. government ready to cede control of ICANN - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/policy/technology/272568-internet-domain-handoff-takes-major-step-forward <comment><USER2> The article doesn't say to whom.

<comment><AUTHOR> "an international multistakeholder model"

<comment><USER2> Exactly.</comment></comment></comment>


Neither candidate is addressing the biggest challenge to jobs: automation - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2016/trump-clinton-jobs-automation/ <comment><USER2> Perhaps because it's an old challenge, which automation has always won?

The Luddites and others challenged the automation of the Industrial Revolution. Now we use their name to demean people who argue against increase automation.

John Henry (a "steel-driving man"), won a Pyrrhic over the steam-powered hammer.

Phil Och's "Automation Song" from the 1960s goes:

      Now you've got new machines for to take my place

      And you tell me it's not mine to share.
      Though I laid down your factories and laid down your fields,

      With my feet on the ground and my back to your wheels.
      And now the smoke is rising, the steel is all a-glow,
      I'm walking down a jobless road and where am I to go.

The solution since at least the early 1900s has been the hope that there would be more free time, for people to be humans instead of wage slaves. Not quite the "work-free utopia" mentioned at the end of this article.

But that would be "socialism". _sigh_</comment>


How Twitter Makes Things Faster: A Timeline - <AUTHOR> http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2009/02/how-twitter-makes-things-faster-a-timeline.html

<comment><USER2> This projection seems faulty (or at the very least it needs more analysis) to me. All the previous [machine] generations yield an increase in bandwidth, something that is not obviously the case for progression from blogging to tweeting. Especially if we consider signal-to-noise ration not brute information.

</comment><comment><USER3> That didn't explain "how".

<comment><USER4> Honestly, I might just be cranky here. First day back at work and all. But this article making the front page seems like a sign that HN's quality controls are failing.

As you point out there is no "how" explained. In fact, there's no real insight here at all. Even the logical conclusions are kind of stupid. Blogging replaced E-Mail? OK.

I can only hope this is just a result of lower traffic due to the Holiday in the U.S.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fifty words on how we've moved from fax to email to social media to twitter.

None of those words mentioning how this abundant "freeness" of vapid information has accelerated intrusion and overload -- way more than it has accelerated sheer speed. IMHO.

<comment><USER6> besides that it will be a long time in coming before twitter text will be considered legal, which is the case with fax and email.

Twitter, for all its success is still a niche, not a mass communications medium like email. And I wonder how they expect to get out of that medium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even with not being able to explain "how" and to appreciate the importance of fax and other mediums even today, the author also failed to mention the fastest mode of communication: IM.

And the reason why Twitter won't replace email is the same reason why IM can't replace email: Email is a standard with no central ownership. On the otherwise Twitter is a "closed" platform with open API. If you want to twitter, you have to use Twitter (R).

</comment><comment><USER8> Fax machines are still in use for the most important messages.

E-mail is still in use for important notifications.

Blogs are still in use for minor items.

Twitter is in use for... inconsequential items?

<comment><USER9> I routinely get contact for business on twitter. That might be because Tipjoy does a lot of business on twitter. <http://tipjoy.com/twitter>

But the process is awesome: @reply saying hi, follow to get a DM, get a DM with a phone number to call. It takes a few seconds if you're using something like TweetDeck.

This is to get a hold of others. I just give out my phone number of email in public, and skip the step to DM.

<comment><USER10> Why not just use IM then? Make up a screenname and mention it on your site. You get a lot more features like blocking, local history/logging etc. Most IMs now support offline messaging too.

<comment><USER9> People see the conversation, and that is valuable. Public customer support is how Twitter is going to make money (in part). IM clients are extremely distracting. Real-time but asynchronous messaging is not the same as synchronous messaging.

You can block people on twitter, and log messages. Better than that, you can access the conversations via an API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I took the liberty of flagging this for being vapid.

</comment><comment><USER12> Conveniently forgetting IM,IRC,etc eh?</comment>


Ask HN: What's your hostname-naming scheme? - <AUTHOR>

Plenty of us at home follow some kind of scheme for naming your machines. What's yours? <comment><USER2> We follow a "Marvel" scheme, for example: one server named ironman (background processing), another capt-america (sessions) and finally thor (storage) and so on, but follow any that is usable and meaningful for your team</comment>


Show HN: Tweek – Fast to-do weekly calendar app - <AUTHOR> https://tweek.so <comment><USER3> I would love to see more todo lists take the weekly approach that lets you slot todos in against meetings, for two reasons.

1\. When you do things on your list, they take up time. Putting them into a calendar view makes a lot of sense because you have to balance those tasks against the other time-based commitments you have (meetings, etc). When you have a separate todo list and calendar, it's difficult to get an effective view of how you're planning to spend your day.

2\. I like the weekly time horizon. A day is sometimes too short to make meaningful progress, and a month is too long a time horizon to effectively plan. A week feels right - you can plan it out and make a dent in your project. But I've yet to see a todo list that lets you plan on this time horizon.

Potential ways to improve:

1\. Sync with google cal to pull in my appointments

2\. Show me time slots so I can plan my todos around my meetings

<comment><USER4> I can't agree with you more. I never understood why calendar and todo apps are separate apps.

At the time, Google Inbox tasks started to be visible in Google calendar, and it was an excellent idea IMHO.

When I want to manage my day, I need to mix events and tasks. Events are not related to me, I don't need to complete them. Tasks are. But for me, both kinds of items need to be planned over the day.

Currently, I'm using a todo app only, even for calendar events. It seems hacky to me, and I truly miss the calendar view, because 2-D visual representation of the time is really more understandable for my brain, than a simple list.

So, for me, the perfect soft would be something like this one (I do like the minimalistic UI), but with embedded calendar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love the design too. Two things prevent me from using this:

1\. What if whomever is behind it doesn't get enough users and this whole thing shuts down in a year? (one solution: have a save to local drive in markdown[1] and sync with _box/_drive as an option)

2\. I already have all my info in my outlook/google/apple/etc calendar and it already syncs with appointments, alarms, email etc. Do I have to type it all here again and manually make sure the time is blocked off?

Otherwise this looks great.

[1] Is there a universal all-text calendar format?

<comment><USER6> We're just launched. This is not our first launch and we take users content very seriously. You can find out more about other products on our website [https://fragment.lv](https://fragment.lv)

<comment><USER7> Saying that you take it seriously is great, but that doesn't really address the concerns of the parent.

I'd also like to adopt something like this if I knew it would not disappear in a year. How do you plan to monetize it? Ads? Charging a monthly fee?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Possibly relevant excerpts from their privacy policy (to save you a click)

> SIA Scada uses the collected data for various purposes:

● To provide and maintain our Service

● To notify you about changes to our Service

● To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so

● To provide customer support

● To gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our Service

● To monitor the usage of our Service

● To detect, prevent and address technical issues

● To provide you with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information

> We do not support Do Not Track ("DNT").

> We may use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of > our Service

> > Google Analytics

> > Behavioral Remarketing

> > Google AdWords

> > Facebook

src - [https://tweek.so/s/privacy.pdf](https://tweek.so/s/privacy.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> What is unusual in it? It's standard privacy policy conditions

<comment><USER8> Nothing unusual. As I said, I copied the content here to save you a click. Personally, I'd like to read/discuss the privacy policy of most Show HN posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I got it. Tnx! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Recommendation: All calendars should have a "Today" or "Now" button to return to the current date as part of the nav options.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting. I have been using Sunsama.com for the same use case. They have pretty good integration with calendar, email, github and common task managers. I particularly like their emphasis on daily and weekly planning ritual.

<comment><USER11> I'm also a big fan of Sunsama for my day-to-day. The recurring tasks, subtasks, and task backlog are nice additions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like the app and see promise. One challenge for me is that I am used to seeing dates in the month/day format rather than the day/month format. When I see 10.08 I think it is October. Could this be customizable?

<comment><USER6> Thanks for feedback, will add this feature in our next update

<comment><USER12> Thank you! You could do it based on geolocation perhaps. Or it could be a toggle in the preferences next to the option to use Monday as the start of the week. The thing I like about the app is the simplicity. I used to have a calendar like this when I was in elementary school. It was nice to quickly see what was due over the rest of the week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great job, really. I like when tools are simple and clear, but functional. Looks like a paper journal I'd used for years. Simplicity is a new black.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the main idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a great application. Thank you for creating it. I hope it stays simple rather than falling prey to unnecessary complicated features.

Please do not add Google Calendar sync. It'll just become another time app at that point with 37 time app integrations, a chrome extension with automatic time tracking, weekly email-based reports, Zapier integrations, and next thing you know you're a project management app.

The paper-like simplicity of it is very appealing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks and performs really well, awesome work!

Todo apps are not a new idea, this proves you can still make a successful product even in the most competitive markets!

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm a fan of weekly view todo management. I've been using [https://teuxdeux.com/](https://teuxdeux.com/) for quite a while, which was good enough for my needs (+ supported markdown text formatting for items).

But apart from that, I really prefer Tweek's design over TeuxDeux. Seems more usable (typography, spacing, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> Tweek was created in July 2020 and now it's trending :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My biggest problem with adding dates to To-Do tasks is that most of these tasks I don't even have bothered to set date against. So my first impression of this tool that combines calendar and To-Do is that it would create a mental burden for me to think about the dates/days when all I want is to quickly add a tasks to my list.

<comment><USER18> This is why I enjoy using Google Tasks so much. Typically I don't have or want to set a date for many items, but occasionally I do and occasionally I want them to even be recurring. For these moments they show up right alongside my other calendar entries. If you have a Gmail account and a Google Calendar and are not using Google Tasks, then you should really try it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like it.

Some ideas for you:

\- a toggle to hide completed tasks

\- going into a menu to delete is too cumbersome. what if on drag a trash target appeared (margins of the screen? bottom right) and then dragging to there deleted it? with a recycle bin view to get the deleted tasks back if desired.

<comment><USER6> good idea, If you don't mind, I will put your requests no our roadmap [https://tweek.nolt.io](https://tweek.nolt.io)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> \+ A large part of me likes this.

\- It was not immediately obvious how to customize it

</comment><comment><USER21> This is awesome, I've been locking into this for such a long time.

I am using notion now and everything is there so if there was an integration with it I would 100% use it

</comment><comment><USER22> The design is great, would be nice if it simply saved to localstorage if you don't log in for those who aren't concerned about syncing and backing up.

</comment><comment><USER23> Love the easy way people can play with it, but it'd really help convey the concept if you showed an example calendar all filled out!

<comment><USER6> just made it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Got an error on signup: Failed to execute 'transaction' on 'IDBDatabase': The database connection is closing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Tweek & [https://octopus.do](https://octopus.do) is the same team

</comment><comment><USER25> I like the large text and simple design.

</comment><comment><USER26> Checkboxes should just be an empty circle unless checked, other than that I love it

</comment><comment><USER27> You're onto something here. I hate having a separate calendar and task list. With Tweek I can just scroll down and put unscheduled tasks in the "someday" category. I also love the simple interface which emphasizes canvas size. Honestly, great job. Ideally there would be a robust notification system on the level of Google Calendar.

Semi-related anecdote: This reminds me of those free calendar planner booklets you get in college, in a good way. Before college I didn't use any kind of calendar. On my first day on campus, I got a calendar booklet from a random lady and it changed my life. For some reason at the end of syllabus week I had the impulse to put _all_ the homework deadlines, assignments, exams, etc...from my syllabi into the planner. On _top_ of that I put all the same stuff into my google calendar so that I get multiple notifications ahead of important deadlines.

I was a procrastinator in high school, but in college I had better foresight than most of my peers. I got homework done 1-2 weeks ahead of time. I would get a dopamine rush from crossing an assignment off of my planner. Each semester at the end of syllabus week, I would sit down for a few hours to fill out my calendar booklet and my google calendar. I wouldn't stop studying until I was satisfied with the number of things I scratched off on my booklet - <USER2> if I didn't feel like doing the hard stuff, I would do my reading for next week so I have more time for the hard stuff later on. Being productive was as easy as opening this booklet that I carried with me everywhere and just doing the next thing. I was super involved in campus activities because I always had my studies taken care of. If my friends wanted to hang out, I would open the booklet and see if I had enough things crossed off, otherwise they would be met with a prompt "sorry I have stuff to do."

This sounds silly, but I am honestly not sure if I would have excelled so much in college if a random lady didn't give me a calendar booklet as a freshman. To this day I have not found an app that _feels_ the same way that that booklet did for me. It would be wonderful if Tweek can be that app, but I also wonder if there was something special about the dual analog and digital experience of writing on paper + Google Calendar notifications. I would also be able to star, highlight, circle, etc...different deadlines depending on the nature of the deadline and its importance. You can do a lot more than mere color coding on actual physical paper, but that is something that can be replicated in a digital format.

I know the greatest thing about the calendar booklet: the _forward_ feeling it gave me, and the satisfaction I got with scratching off or "defeating" tasks. The ease with which it enabled to pounce on the next thing. The reason I speak about feelings is because hormones and feelings have as much of an impact on your productivity as logic. Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman discusses the importance of feeling which way is forward in this podcast with Joe Rogan [https://youtu.be/gLJowTOkZVo](https://youtu.be/gLJowTOkZVo)

<comment><USER18> Have you tried Google Tasks? You can enter a task with or without a date. For those that have dates they will show up on your Google Calendar, you can set recurring tasks that occur every so often, and it sends notifications.

<comment><USER27> I did a few years ago. I didn't like how tasks were miniaturized and visually de-emphasized relative to the rest of the calendar. I will give it another try though and see how it changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can you make URLs auto hyperlinks that click to open in new tab please

</comment><comment><USER7> How is this funded, now and also a few years from now?

</comment><comment><USER29> great job, I like that it is simple enough that I can figure out how to use it in less than 30 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER30> Remember</comment>


JavaScript is the future...maybe - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jonathanchannon.com/2013/01/09/javascript-is-the-future-maybe/ <comment><USER2> Agreed, maybe. All this "the language/platform is just a tool, become a better carpenter" stuff is too clever by half. If you haven't played with CoffeeScript + socket.io + express + etc recently, I'd highly recommend doing so now.

I'm in a similar position of looking at node.js a year or two back and thinking "this has promise", but gave up after hitting wall after wall, four layers of callback-clusterfuck down, trying to do anything real. But things have changed.

The combination of the crazy stupid money Google et. al have poured into VMs with payoffs on the client and server-side, the scalability of event-driven coding, the rapidly evolving breadth and quality of the node.js ecosystem, the modern powerful feel of CoffeeScript, and the slick simple abstractions provided by socket.io (why are there not compatible server-side libraries for other platforms?!), really are starting to give JS that Yegge "next big language" feel.

If you'd told me 5 years ago there'd be serious companies replacing nginx/apache with a dynamic reverse proxy written in javascript, I would have laughed in your face. Now it's reality.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm baffled by people's obsession with finding The One Programming Language. Would the world be better off if everyone spoke and thought in only English?

<comment><USER4> I don't think natural languages are a very good analogy for programming languages. But the world where everyone can speak English, is certainly a better place.

(disclaimer: English is only my third language)

<comment><USER5> Going off topic here but: I won't disagree with the utopian notion of a world where everyone have a common lingua franca, I think that would be a good thing as well. There being only a single language though, that's definitely not a very positive thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find the gray on gray-stripes very straining on my eyes and stopped reading.

<http://contrastrebellion.com/>

<comment><USER7> Agreed, but as a short term solution <http://www.readability.com/addons>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I started programming with ruby, and was really pretty reluctant to move to less clean languages - it was just hard on my eyes when I was used to reading and writing clean and understandable ruby code.

But javascript won me over in the end, and I now write most of my apps with node. Totally unrelated to hype or to this article or to anything -- the reason why was mostly the challenges that came with switching to js. The two challenges that particularly intrigued me were:

\- Making async code clean, readable, and manageable. As _themgt_ mentioned, this is a really tough challenge. It took me months of going over and over my code, continually reading about promises and async flow control etc. to really "get it". And once I got it, it was really empowering, and the ability and choice to run pieces of code in parallel or in series (which you don't get at all with sync languages) is something I'm now very reluctant to give up.

\- Writing code that has more syntax (braces, semicolons, low level loops, etc) and still making it clean and readable is a challenge that I think has improved the way I write _all_ code for the better. It's so much more difficult to make javascript adhere to the cleanliness standards that I'm used to with ruby that I spend a lot more time thinking about how elegant and readable my code is and optimizing it for that purpose, which I think nobody would argue is a great thing for a developer to work on.

So without comment on whether javascript is "the" language or "the future", which, as other people have mentioned, is silly to speculate, I would strongly recommend picking up node and using it to build a few apps, if just for the purpose of dealing with the two points I mentioned above : )

</comment><comment><USER9> This was a disappointing article. Rather than focusing on the strengths of javascript, the author is trying to sell TypeScript. There are many compile- to-javascript languages, but the real strength lies within javascript itself.

In my experience, the JS ecosystem is really strong. v8 really pushed the performance bar, and the upcoming features (stuff like Buffers/Views for contiguous memory) make it possible to write programs that look and behave like C programs. The breadth and depth of nontrivial open-source projects and code segments is impressive, and the IRC communities are fairly vibrant.

I tried an arithmetic benchmark to compare JS performance between node.js and vert.x. As it turns out, the JS implementations under node.js even smokes the Java implementations!

</comment><comment><USER10> As far as JavaScript goes he's not off the mark. The thing that saddens me a bit is that it's yet another post about a particular language/technology/thing.

No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context. This is as true for Android as it is for Visual Basic and Arduino.

While this is obviously my personal opinion, I think the industry as a whole might benefit a lot more from a post that discusses the pros and cons of building a solution that targets say, the web, a phone, tablet and a desktop. And how such a solution might do authN and authR, synchronise data using store/forward, work in an offline scenario (aeroplane, underground, Gobi desert...).

Talking about specific technologies in such a context is useful. It is even more useful when considering environmental factors such directories, monitoring software, privacy, advertising and so on.

<comment><USER11> _No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context._

I don't really buy into this reasoning. If a given language is worse than every other in almost every context (the "global" context, if you will), then it's clearly an inferior language relative to the others.

JavaScript does exhibit this. It has exactly one thing going for it: it's the only scripting language widely available in web browsers.

Aside from that, it's inferior to most other languages in almost every respect. Its syntax is mediocre. Its semantics are inconsistent and often outright confusing. It's missing critical features that are essential for anything but the smallest-scale development. Its performance is only just somewhat poor today, due to a huge amount of effort from Google and others, otherwise it was downright abysmal in its early implementations. Its libraries are more bandages for its numerous problems, rather than tools that empower developers. The supporting tooling is quite bad (Chrome's developer tools or Firebug don't compare to a real debugger, for instance). The community leaves a lot to be desired, especially given the high amount of ignorance and the extremely bad "advice" that is passed around so often by its members.

We shouldn't be politically correct when it comes to technology. Some programming languages are worse than others, and we shouldn't shy away from saying this. JavaScript is an inferior language, like it or not.

<comment><USER12> _It's missing critical features that are essential for anything but the smallest-scale development._

What in your opinion is smallest-scale development? Millions of users using your application each year? Do we need web apps to support billions of users each year now?

JavaScript is the most superior scripting language widely available in web browsers. Until there is an alternative it cannot be an inferior language because there is nothing equivalent on which to base a comparison.

<comment><USER11> I was talking about code base and application size, not so much the number of users.

Using JavaScript for a large application is not a pleasant experience. I know there are a lot of JavaScript developers out there who have never used anything but JavaScript, and maybe PHP, so they don't know what they're missing. But those of us who have used even just C++, Java, C#, or Delphi will know how critical things like static typing, namespaces, proper modularity and class-based OO, for example, are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Author has some good points. What I don't like is this superficial "the future" label. Hopefully, "the future" won't be about just one technology. In my opinion, it should be more about using the right tool for the right job. Even though I'm a big fan, it's obvious that JavaScript is not the answer to all of you casual programming questions, let alone the very complex ones.

</comment><comment><USER14> It might seem trite, but a CoffeeScript + TypeScript combination would make me very happy. I have been developing in TypeScript recently because the IDE support is awesome (and I'm a static typing enthusiast). Now if I could just reduce the verbosity and save some keystrokes...

</comment><comment><USER15> From reading the post it seems that JavaScript is the future if Microsoft supports it.

</comment><comment><USER16> What important/high traffic sites run off Node?

<comment><USER17> Trello.com hit a million users yesterday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Um, JavaScript is cool and all and you can use it in a lot of places, but for things beyond nontrivial apps, Node.js is going to be hard to scale to larger teams. Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe having a bunch of smaller services talking to each other is the way to go, but so far node hasn't solved the inherent callback soup problem.

<comment><USER19> I worked on a Node-backed website with a team for a year, and we had no problem with callback soup. However, we did use IcedCoffeeScript which made dealing with callbacks a lot easier. But, scalability-wise, programming in Node was no different from any other language. What do you think makes it hard to scale?</comment></comment>


The New War on Comedy - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2019/01/03/the-new-war-on-comedy/ <comment><USER2> Comedian here. There is nothing new or insightful here, only the same tired complaint when comedians get blowback for lazy jokes. Louis CK was once the king of balancing smart and offensive - he now appears to have shifted to low- brow.

Far more concerning are the types of contracts being asked of this author to perform at a college campus. In my experience, when comedians are invited to perform, it is done by a Student-run organization, which probably developed its own internal policy. It isn't surprising that student groups don't want to ruffle feathers when the consequences for hiring the next Michael Richards stretch far beyond the room where it happens.

<comment><USER3> Was the bit really low-brow, or did you just not like it?

(Paraphrasing)

"You will address me as 'there'; I identify as a location."

I thought that was pretty funny.

<comment><USER2> In the world of comedy, this is already a very tired bit. "Can I identify as a stapler" etc. It was funny at the beginning of identity politics discourse- now its airline food.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of the Radiolab pod "In the No"[1]. Things are definitely going off the rails. This discussion illuminates it perfectly for me: two people can have a sexual encounter and agree 100% on the details of it, that consent was given at each stage (in the affirmative), yet after it is over one of the parties can retroactively revoke consent and claim sexual assault. In fact, a young man was kicked out of college for just this thing (his lawyer was on the podcast).

I wonder all the time how we got here. And I fear for my 18 yr old son, who will enter college this fall.

[1] [https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/no- part-1](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/no-part-1)

<comment><USER5> It can get worse than that. Amherst College kicked a young man for "sexual assault" when he was blacked out drunk and a girl decided to perform oral sex on him. The accuser actually did commit sexual assault and there isn't the slightest hint she will ever be tried for it. Her name is not publically known as she is shielded for accusing someone of what she did. She was also shielded from being deposed because it might traumatize her.

[https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/06/09/amhersts- version...](https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/06/09/amhersts-version-of- kafkas-the-trial/)

<comment><USER4> I remember that. Totally insane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When will this faux sense of superiority end? People have a negative reaction to people being harrassed, attacked, or hated. If you jack off in front of people who are unwilling, you're going to get a big negative reaction. If you express hatred for somebody (perhaps because they jacked off in front of somebody who was unwilling, or because you hate their political ideologies, or because you feel that they unjustly hate you), you're going to get a big negative reaction. Acting like that's crazy, or irrational, or unnatural, or trying to focus everybody's attention on censorship from private platforms that occurs as a result, is all just a purposefully naive ideological attack. This article is just another example of confronting hatred with hatred, and its being written is just as inevitable as the reactions it addresses. Except that it tries to pretend it's something above that.

When Louis says "being at a school where people got shot doesn't make you interesting", and his audience "roar(s) with laughter" \- that's not laughter. Laughter is a semi-involuntary reaction to something striking you as humorous. If all people were utterly disconnected from the politics of the situation and immune to moral offense, the range of reactions to that joke would be somewhere in the neighborhood of smirking. That audience isn't roaring with laughing - they're expressing hatred together.

</comment><comment><USER7> >On the same day, Netflix pulled an episode of "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj" for the following joke about the killing of Saudi Arabian writer Jamal Khashoggi

From my understanding, they only pulled it from the library specific to Saudi Arabia. As well, they left it on youtube, where the entire first season is streaming for free. That seems either to be left out of the article, or to have changed recently.

Other than that, this doesn't seem particularly new. Just easier to hear about. People have always attempted to censor folk.

</comment><comment><USER8> >The underlying assumptions of social justice censorship are that words are a form of violence, that a subjective interpretation matters more than the speaker's intent and that safety is contingent on not being teased or challenged.

This is spot on. Best not to appease the outrageists.

</comment><comment><USER9> To quote an ad-lib line from a famous rock musician -

"Does anyone remember laughter?"

>The underlying assumptions of social justice censorship are that words are a form of violence, that a subjective interpretation matters more than the speaker's intent and that safety is contingent on not being teased or challenged.

Probably _who_ tells the joke matters more. Except for the following:

>On the same day, Netflix pulled an episode of "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj" for the following joke about the killing of Saudi Arabian writer Jamal Khashoggi

Maybe, as the article insinuates, it was to protect the delicate feelings of Saudi elites. My money is on the belief Netflix wanted to keep Hasan alive.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hacker news?

<comment><USER11> Yeah. Definitely not. Need to spend more time on new flagging junk like this.

<comment><USER12> Here is a list of articles on the topic of social equality posted today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18822577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18822577) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18826683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18826683) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18824440](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18824440) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18823468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18823468)</comment></comment></comment>


Fork me, I'm Famous - <AUTHOR> http://blog.shinylittlething.com/2009/02/25/fork-me-im-famous <comment><USER2> Those are all important projects, I wish they'll continue to remain a standard and not broken up by different people and different implementations. Having said that, I don't want to discourage people to fork projects, it's a great way to learn.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I had a back and forth a while ago with one of the github guys about this issue... it's great that you _can_ fork stuff so easily, but people don't want to compare 343243 sort-of complete, hacked up versions of some project, they want one place to go to to get the code, and be reasonably sure that they're getting the focus of development efforts.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's really an either/or choice. You can have loads of forks on Github but still have a central place for those who just want to download code. I think the really cool thing about Github is that it makes it easy to experiment with the code in public. It also makes it very easy to collect up any changes other people have made and integrate them into a single tree.

It will be interesting to see what happens with these projects. Hopefully there will be a few forks as people try things out then one person (or group of people) will step forward to manage an "official" release. Presumably that person would set up a website for them (or take over the existing one) and not use the Github project as the sole means of distribution.

<comment><USER3> I hope it works out. If things go well, it may take place as you suggest... I think it's too early to tell, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How To Replace a $600 Piece of Software with 100 Lines of Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wekeroad.com/building-things/video-encoding-rack-attack <comment><USER2> And now this author gains a bit of enlightenment as to why Unix command line jocks love their shell script files.</comment>


The Myth of Commoditized Excellence - <AUTHOR> http://barryhawkins.com/blog/posts/the-myth-of-commoditized-excellence/ <comment><USER2> For years now I have been consciously limiting my enthusiasm when presenting things I've learned to others after being bitten by this problem. Some personal examples:

* linux - the freedom it gave me to build my own computing astounded me. I praised it in every direction only to find people that want all the benefits with no effort. I had to configure their systems to prove linux was any good. When I started telling them the benefits require personal tinkering I was attacked for "being an elitist" and linux was said to be actually full of things that don't work. Now I present it as a geek thing that is of no relevance to the general public.

* motorcycles - I now have the following presentation when people ask me about my experience riding: "It's not like on TV, when it's hot you sweat, when it's cold you freeze, when it rains you're wet and it's quite dangerous on top of it." That's after my enthusiasm convinced some people to buy motorcycles and crash because they didn't take riding seriously enough. They thought they where cool toys.

<comment><USER3> That's what I do now when people ask me if they should have kids. I always say the same thing: All the benefits are intangible and all the drawbacks are tangible.

<comment><USER4> True in developed countries but still not necessarily true in certain societies where you need hands for untrained labor or where children are essentially saleable goods.

<comment><USER4> Normally it's bad form to comment on receiving downvotes but in his case I'll point out that I spent a lot of time in such a country as a kid as I have a parent from that country (although said parent had only two siblings and their family didn't practice bride price / have kids work to support family etc).

Not all reasons for having a large family are religious; some are just desire, of course, and some are indeed economically rational. That last is part of the reason, I believe, that birth rate drops as wealth increases, and is yet another reason to try to increase wealth for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good description of this particular lifecycle. I'm new to Hacker News and I remember reading (when I joined) about how the platform is taking steps not to become too hip for its own good.

It's mentioned below but boy did Agile fall into that trap. I now cringe when I hear the word.

It sounds like Six Sigma is also in a self-destructive part of the cycle.

</comment><comment><USER6> Really interesting article. Resonated with me.

Some thoughts

1) Consultancies have created a business model around that carrying excellencies from client to the next

2) The most obvious concept coming into mind which was completely abused through this is of course the whole agile (and increasingly OKRs...) movement

3) I still think it does make sense to generalize (not commoditize) concepts and spread them, however there needs to be big disclaimers about context etc

4) A big part of management's responsibility is to improve the organization continuously, which can be done by getting inspiration how others have been successful

</comment><comment><USER7> This has broader application than just technology. I think in all contexts it is good to have a firm grasp of first principles and how to trace back any commoditized excellence back to them. Also a good understanding of when to apply "beginner's mind" to check if a bit of "expert knowledge" is actually relevant

</comment><comment><USER8> I especially enjoyed the meta recognition that the act of writing this article and giving it a name itself possibly perpetuates the myth.

<comment> blaser-waffle "Get Rich Now By Reading My Book!"

Book Advice: write books on how to get rich; sell books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "need to belong"..."The tendency of people with this need is to weaponize The Thing, and to wield it against those outside the movement and those they do not deem as worthy of inclusion in the movement."

So many examples of this in daily life. People do amazingly vicious things to validate their membership in a movement/tribe/religion/cult/etc.

<comment><USER10> This is how we survive. Survival is an incredibly deep topic, things people typically think of as unnecessary like hatred are actually done for survival. (not condoning it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This description fits so perfectly with middle-management-driven org-wide busywork exercises. "[Thing] is important and will take our work to the next level. That is why we are implementing [naive approximation of Thing that misses the point]. Given [Thing]'s importance, we expect you to prioritize this and take it seriously."

</comment><comment><USER12> A good article. Perhaps ironically, I would summarize the pivotal point of the article as, "be sure your lies will find you out". You could rephrase it as "deceitfulness will come back to bite you".

This applies even if you have good intentions. Honesty often comes with an initial cost that makes people turn away.

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't call this kind of creep necessarily deceptive, but failing to manage expectations has essentially the same effect as intentionally creating hollow ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me a lot of "Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution"[0], which portraits very similar dynamics on a subculture level.

[0]: [https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops- sociopaths](https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, that same identity dynamic at work. "I identify as a member of this tribe", whether "this tribe" is about The Thing or anything else, leads to weird human social stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are truths that hold across cultural barriers. We call them "Mathematics". It's the only commoditized excellence I know of.

<comment><USER17> Math "proofs" and empirical "evidence" mean that all humans who take an interest in these things have compatible experiences.

Thinking they give us access to truth in some explicit objective universal sense is naive - because we could just be cataloguing our most persistent cognitive and perceptual habits.

<comment><USER18> The thing is that when people from totally different cultures do math, they come to compatible conclusions. The algorithms in the Rhind Papyrus still work, the ones we understand, anyway. And that's from 1000 years or more before Euclid. This is not true of cooking, fashion, law, childrearing, painting, or religion. So maybe there isn't an underlying objective truth people observe mentally in math, but there's something that has some properties shared by objective truth and not by other human inventions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article gets close to coining a new term in its description of a lifecycle.

The front-end landscape is filled with these once-honest charlatans.

</comment><comment><USER20> Isn't it a mistake to conclude it can be avoided? To do so would be to fall into the same trap.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is the exact trajectory of Rust.</comment>


Why Stephen Wolfram's Research Program Is a Dead End - <AUTHOR> https://www.singlelunch.com/2020/04/23/why-stephen-wolframs-research-program-is-a-dead-end/ <comment><USER2> While I agree that it is a dead-end in terms of formalisation, I think there are many things worth noting from ANKS:

\+ From small simple beeps and boops we can get orchestrated incomprehensibly large aesthetically pleasing pieces of generated glory.

\+ We can learn about the fundamentals of a game by simply studying the input and the output, without really understanding how the in-between step works.

\+ We can transform data from algorithmic to visual, and try and infer patterns this way.

Thus, Wolfram might be intimating that because we can go from the algorithmic to the visual (or sense-able), we can perhaps go backwards, our experience to some sort of algorithm thereof. To me it looks more like the study of the unfoldment of the universe/cosmos, and less about empiricism. Granted, it is based on repeated events, which is the fundamental assumption of Science.</comment>


The ARM Story: Earthquake Looming? - <AUTHOR> http://realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?action=detail&id=115697&threadid=115697&roomid=2

<comment><USER2> A huge thread. You might just pick through the Linus Torvalds responses and find:

• ARMs are slower than Atoms, benchmarks that show them close are suspect if they stay in L1 cache.

• ARM architecture fragmentation is an issue

• He considers the ATA TRIM instruction to be worse than useless. (I missed the segue there.)

• He thinks ____* is an idiot. (name redacted)</comment>


IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business - <AUTHOR> https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/irs-budget-cuts-mean-34-3b-in-lost-revenue-from-big-business <comment><USER2> Reading the actual study [1], the headline is a bit deceptive. The study looked at audits between 2000 and 2010, a period during which funding to the IRS increased, and found that generally more funding for audits led to more money recovered from audits (duh). But that $34.3B figure is over 10 years, so it's a tiny fraction of a percent of overall federal revenue, and it's not offset by the amount of more money the IRS would have taken to run those audits.

Also unmentioned is the very real negative externalities that IRS audits cause. Audits disproportionately affect poor people [2], who are also the least able to spend time dealing with them. The United States already has extremely low tax evasion rates [3]. Rather than spending money to catch more of the very few cheaters by audits, other country's tax authorities have found "nudge" letters were found to be similarly effective and vastly cheaper.

[1] [https://www.aaajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2308/accr-52520?utm_s...](https://www.aaajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2308/accr-52520?utm_source=15-kelley- research-on-irs-budget- cuts&utm_medium=email&utm_content=How+do+IRS+resources+affect+the+corporate+audit+process?&utm_campaign=ag)

[2] [https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/eitc- audit](https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/eitc-audit)

[3] [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Size-and-development- of-...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Size-and-development-of-tax- evasion-in-of-GDP-in-38-OECD-countries-accounting-for_tbl2_256040463)

<comment><USER3> The latest IRS changes prioritize low income over high income audit targets: [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsand...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2019/05/21/why- are-the-super-rich-getting-audited-less/amp/)

<comment><USER4> This seems absolutely insane.

> For those making less than $25,000, the audit rate fell 0.02% (to .69%) from > 2017 to 2018.

Frankly, for it to be significantly above 0 seems grossly inefficient. I would assume that average rate of return for public money spent on auditing a millionaire is... a fair bit higher than that spent auditing someone earning 25k.

<comment><USER5> It's not insane at all. Note that's AGI - _adjusted_ gross income.

If we stopped auditing those with AGIs less than $25,000, then all I'd have to do is take enough deductions (retirement contributions, unreimbursed business expenses, medical expenses, loss from property sales, tuition, etc) to get my AGI below $25,000 and I'd never have to worry about being audited.

Ever.

One way to significantly reduce your taxes is to lower your AGI. So if anything, the lower AGIs would be a good place to start looking for tax cheats.

<comment><USER6> That's an alarming equation. The harder you lie, the less likely you'll be called out on it.

What else in life works that way?

<comment><USER7> Politics ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The GOP direction has been to break the IRS since the 90s. None of the administrations were willing or able to take a stand against it, and this administration is actively trying to break the executive branch overall.

A good friend was a specialist in a few tax evasion schemes used by real estate developers and a few other more obscure areas with similar methods. Basically, there were about 50 people nationally doing this in the early 90s, but the program was defunded over time and when he retired, there were 4. He spent about 60% of his time flying all over the country to testifying in court. Today there is nobody, the last guy retired last year.

By my friend's reckoning, his direct work accounted for $100M in recovered revenue per year. Some big cases were multiples of that. They have models that show the deterrent effect that enforcement has -- that $100M in recovery may deter $1B in undetected fraud. That is money being stolen from the treasury.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, large portions of the GOP (current presidents nothwithstanding) has also been advocating for simplified tax schemes that would make a smaller IRS more than capable enough for the job.

<comment><USER10> Show me the bills that they have brought to committee/the floor that actually simplify the tax code to make auditing & enforcement simpler. Don't confuse rhetoric with action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And yet some people manage to whip themselves in to a righteous frenzy over someone collecting welfare or immigrants getting a microscopic bit of state aid.

Such people really need to get a sense of proportion.

The destitute, despised, downtrodden guy who slaves away to support their family by mowing your lawn, picking apples for you, driving you somewhere, or serving you your burger is not your enemy.

<comment><USER12> Last week I saw a person on Facebook sharing an anecdote patterned after the "welfare queen" trope and arguing against food stamps.

I noticed from her Facebook page that she owned a ranching operation, so I searched her name in the EWG Farm Subsidy Database and saw that she and her husband had received $18k in subsidies in 2018, and nearly $250k since 1995.

<comment><USER13> I'm against people living off of food stamps also, and if there is a subsidy out there for the taking, then i'm going to take it. I agree that government should not be involved in either of those things, but promoting certain kinds of businesses might be worth the subsidy for some people.

<comment><USER14> Would you be against other people getting the subsidy?

I'm just trying to figure out if it's hypocrisy or selfishness.

<comment><USER15> Why not both?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> IRS budget cuts seem to be thrown around a lot, but to me this is just a symptom of the real problem -- a tax code that is way too complex. Years of congress pandering to special interests, fixing minor issues with pages of new tax rules and no implementation accountability (implementation and enforcement is dumped on IRS) brought US tax code to a state that can overwhelm any staffing levels.

Simplifying tax code will go much further than trying to staff up IRS. My 2c.

<comment><USER17> Simplifying would be great, but it's not really possible to do because you won't get the exactly same tax distribution with a simplified set of rules. So politicians will frame it as "why do you want to raise taxes on single moms?" and "why are you taking away the deduction for teachers?" and "this bill hurts vulnerable people who have been hit by natural disasters." So any suggestion to simplify the tax code is a no go.

<comment><USER18> It feels like voters are voting for pouring lighter fuel on the wood and throwing lit matches at the wood but vote strongly against having a bonfire. They want politicians to fix problems that they wanted the politicians to create and then don't want the actual fixes to the problems they want fixed.

<comment><USER19> Everyone is selfish

Everyone wants to lower their own taxes by raising everyone else's taxes.

100 people in a room will have 100 different way to change the tax system, and every proposal will have 99 votes against it.

<comment><USER20> There's a reason business owners fear unions: They understand fully well that the wide majority of people have a different interest than them and if that majority are allowed to come together and realize that they will ask for things benefiting the majority to the detriment of the minority. Same with elections. Hence the age old strategy of divide and conquer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The act of reducing the manpower of the IRS needed to enforce the laws may have a greater effect than all the tax cuts combined. If a business is fairly certain an audit isn't coming, their effective tax rate is whatever they want it to be.

<comment><USER22> Also important is what happens to a business that gets caught. If the punishment is 'pay back taxes plus a moderate penalty, and here we'll even set up a convenient payment plan for you', then cheating on taxes is effectively a free roll. You have a 95% chance of saving a ton of money, and 5% chance of paying only a bit more than you would have paid anyway if you followed the laws.

That said, the absurd complexity of the tax code is also a problem here, since you don't want the government doling out bankruptcy-inducing penalties on businesses that might just be making an honest mistake. The whole system clearly needs an overhaul. It should be simple enough that when a business severely underpays, it will be very likely that they did so on purpose, and therefore a large, deterrent-worthy penalty can be justified.

<comment><USER23> The complexity is by design to make it harder to audit and easier to hide cheating.

Given clear and straightforward code/laws, it becomes hard to cheat.

<comment><USER24> That is absolutely not true. Much of the complexity of the tax code is present in order to clearly prescribe rules in edge case situations in order to reduce judgement calls that would inevitably tilt in favor of the filer.

<comment><USER23> The complexity isn't driven by the IRS, they've been pushing for simplification but lobbyist for businesses push for rules changes, and lobbyists for the tax filing industry push for rules to solidify the need for their industry.

Just like Healthcare and Gun control, there are industries and 3rd parties with vested interests in keeping the system complicated and hard to track or enforce so they can profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> From reading the comments, I really wonder how many HN Users are tax evaders. I see the top two comments are "the tax code is too complicated, we shouldn't be going after tax evaders" and "this isn't actually a big problem." If the government is getting more money collecting unreported taxes than it costs to fund the collecting of said taxes, what's the problem?

<comment><USER26> The tax code is too complicated, which, so NPR tells me, is mostly Intuit's fault

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Just one of the many sectors where budget cuts are going turn into huge losses down the line. The consequences of cutting healthcare and education are (going) to be much worse.

<comment><USER28> When have healthcare or education ever been cut?

Edit: A lot of downvotes, but no examples. Such cuts are always talked about as if though they have factually happened. To my knowledge, I've never actually seen such a cut in the United States at the federal, state, or local level. Sometimes, there have been attempts to limit the rate of spending growth, but those seem to always fail too.

<comment><USER29> The governor of Alaska just signed a bill that cut 41% off the state budget for higher education.

<comment><USER28> Thank you for the example. However, it appears that the governor reversed course just yesterday: [https://news.yahoo.com/alaska-governor-reverses- course-contr...](https://news.yahoo.com/alaska-governor-reverses-course- controversial-032522288.html)

I've noticed this is a frequent occurance--one faction will try to score political points by appearing to take an action, only to capitulate at the end when fewer people are looking.

<comment><USER29> Partially revered course. Now it's just ~8%, but its still significant.

<comment><USER30> That's the Art of the Deal. Set the initial position much higher than desired and retrench to actual one on push back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't get why countries always under-invest in tax collection... as long as it's ROI positive, shouldn't budgets be getting increased?

<comment><USER32> There's a faction of US politicians that are philosophically against (most) government and taxes. It's not about ROI, it's about their goals.

<comment><USER33> Interesting. A faction you say? You mean like the faction that drafted the Articles of Confederation?

<comment><USER34> No, the contemporary one that learned nothing from that folly.

<comment><USER33> Oh! The one that found success with the Laffer Curve. Right.

Freedom isn't an idea. It's an actual place. In terms of kingdoms a free peoples kingdom is a Freedom; and you don't have to pay someone for the right to exist.

Oddly enough we agree, there is a faction in the US pursuing its own agenda.

<comment><USER32> > The one that found success with the Laffer Curve

Care to explain? The most recent tax cuts that were supposed to pay for themselves haven't. So where are we on the Laffer Curve right now?

<comment><USER35> Hard to measure both over long and short timescales, since so many factors affect the willingness of people to invest personal effort and risk toward earning.

You might have more success looking at the amounts while attempting to control for more factors; but of course, you could make it worse, because statistics is hard!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > IRS is auditing fewer tax returns from corporations because it has fewer > people and resources available to identify potential errors and follow up on > questionable tax returns

On one hand I do want businesses to pay their fair share. On the other hand I don't want to encourage massive tax agencies which must justify their numbers by auditing and harassing as many people as possible. Often small businesses that don't have to resources to defend themselves like large corporations. Very similar to police departments who justify their existence by writing tickets and have quotas set up to encourage cops to harass people. Does not seem much more than a shakedown.

<comment><USER37> Generally they don't harass people unless something seems amiss and there is a large enough discrepancy to justify it.

And there's eventually a marginal tipping point where more money spent in audits won't net more recovered revenue. Generally the smaller the fry, the less you can recover from them.

<comment><USER38> Unless you were a conservative group a few years back.

'The controversy began in 2013 when an IRS official admitted the agency had been aggressively scrutinizing groups with names such as "Tea Party" and "Patriots."'

[https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes- for-...](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for- aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups)

<comment><USER39> because they were abusing their tax exempt status. But that's the part you probably don't like to say out loud.

<comment><USER40> Do you have a source for this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Biggest ROI the government can get, invest in the fucking IRS. Something like a 1:15 or 1:20 return if I remember correctly.

</comment><comment><USER42> The article is rather misleading. Here is the underlying article, which will be published this year but was actually received in September 2016: [https://www.ntanet.org/wp- content/uploads/proceedings/2016/1...](https://www.ntanet.org/wp- content/uploads/proceedings/2016/158-nessa-schwab-stomberg-towery-irs- resources-paper.pdf) (follow the link in the article, which lists the receive date as September 30, 2016).

The article mentions the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (Trump's tax cuts). But the IRS budget cuts discussed in the article are actually from 2015, stemming from the kerfuffle over the IRS allegedly targeting conservative groups for increased scrutiny.

Separately, the article fails to address the nature of the additional revenue that could hypothetically have been collected. Pages 26-27 of the article address the study's finding that "the IRS collects a larger portion of proposed deficiencies when it has fewer resources." In the authors' view, that could be because "the IRS focuses on weaker taxpayer positions when its resources are limited." In other words, a larger enforcement budget leads the IRS to go after cases where the IRS is less certain it will win because the facts are more debatable. The authors do not assess the merits of those cases or whether it would be socially desirable to pursue them.

</comment><comment><USER43> What does the last sentence mean exactly? _" The IRS is fundamental in preventing businesses from engaging in transactions that aggressively reduce their tax liability."_

It's not clear to me what is actually being said here because engaging in transactions that reduce tax liability is legal.

</comment><comment><USER44> There was an excellent podcast interview with Jesse Eisinger from ProPublica on this subject back in February. It goes into quite a bit of detail on the problem: [https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/can-we-tax-rich- jesse-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/can-we-tax-rich-jesse- eisinger-explains-ncna970581)

</comment><comment><USER45> Taxpayer service defunding is another problem: [https://www.treasury.gov/about/budget-performance/budget- in-...](https://www.treasury.gov/about/budget-performance/budget-in- brief/bib19/16.%20irs%20fy%202019%20bib.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER46> I'd like to see better treatment of those who fill in tax forms mistakenly wrongly, but still end up paying the right amount of tax.

We currently punish those people badly, which is wrong IMO

</comment><comment><USER47> You call it revenue, I call it inflation reduction.

</comment><comment><USER48> Amazon doesn't pay taxes despite being worth $793 billion. How can I do this?

<comment><USER49> Amazon pays taxes, not sure how anybody still believes this piece of misinformation. You do realize it is Congress who creates the tax rules to begin with, so if anyone is at fault for the tax 'loop holes' these companies leverage, it's corrupt legislators.

"In 2017, Amazon paid close to $1 billion in income tax. In 2018, the amount jumped to $1.18 billion, accounting for local, state, and international taxes."

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniedenning/2019/02/22/why...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniedenning/2019/02/22/why- amazon-pays-no-corporate-taxes/#1118762c54d5)

<comment><USER50> > "In 2017, Amazon paid close to $1 billion in income tax. In 2018, the amount > jumped to $1.18 billion, accounting for local, state, and international > taxes."

Your quote glaringly leaves out federal....

<comment><USER51> It leaves it out because it isn't relevant. Amazon pays no federal tax (or close to none anyway) but it pays a shitload in other taxes.

Amazon reinvests revenue into the business which is discussed tons on this site. It also has the effect of eliminating certain types of taxes... and massively increasing taxes in other areas (like sales, use, B&O, payroll, etc...). Somehow I don't see discussion of how payroll tax at Amazon is exploding, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> "budget cuts"

</comment><comment><USER53> How much was made up from the tariffs? I suspect it was the roughly the lost revenue.

<comment><USER10> Zero. The lost revenue is still lost. It can only be made up by funding and staffing the IRS. The existence of new taxes does not negate this outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Greed is winning in America. Any person or political party that is trying to reduce staffing for a tax collection agency is trying to get away with tax fraud or they are working for somebody who is. It is far past the time to recognise this.

<comment><USER55> "Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law."

Just as I don't want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don't want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue.

It's a balance.

<comment><USER56> That's because when cops have nothing better to do, they harass and assault people for all sorts of subjective made up infractions.

I do not expect a properly staffed tax agency to.

<comment><USER57> The IRS has (this decade) targeted specific institutions by their affiliations:

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

(Read the fourth paragraph of this page)

<comment><USER56> And? Why are audits targeted to a type of organization a problem?

If doctors started forming non-profits to do financial engineering to get tax- exempt status, I'd sure as hell hope that the IRS would devote a bit more scrutiny than usual to practitioners of that profession.

Political groups started doing financial engineering to get tax-exempt status. The IRS started auditing them a bit more closely. I don't see the issue.

<comment><USER58> > And? Why are audits targeted to a type of organization a problem?

> If doctors started forming non-profits to do financial engineering to get > tax-exempt status, I'd sure as hell hope that the IRS would devote a bit > more scrutiny than usual to practitioners of that profession.

> Political groups started doing financial engineering to get tax-exempt > status. The IRS started auditing them a bit more closely. I don't see the > issue.

The country's inspector general deemed it unlawful. Given the report that came out from the investigation, there seems to be more to the audits than neutral scrutiny that is not performed on the basis of ideology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The paper itself is locked behind a paywall. No mention of the methodology in either the linked article or the paper's abstract. No indication of the overall economic effects.

This is non-knowledge.

<comment><USER59> [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r_DDSE...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r_DDSEsGOqMJ:https://aaapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2308/accr-52520+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de) has the full content

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I'm going to keep saying this in every goddamn tax thread I see here - We need to switch around the way we are taxing from the US level getting the largest pie to the state. I'm not saying I figured it out - but right now there are enormous issues with the way we tax.

1\. We have a system where the fed. government holds states hostage for money when it wants to bully things around. (emergencies, etc..).

2\. The current system is actively encouraging people to domicile in TX, FL, WA, SD, etc... (income tax free states) and not actually live there, hoping to play the tax lottery (or move around so much they can't be convicted).

3\. The "sales tax" system in the US is ridiculous. It's egregiously illegal according to our tax-once rule. If we can get a tax break on all sales tax we paid, that would be one thing, but we can't.

4\. Ind. contractors are taxed in extremely unfair ways, often have no recourse to get discounts or tax breaks on health insurance.

My solution -

I say it's time to start having states collect that 25% and the feds are hands-off of taxing individuals. Beyond that it would make sense for people to declare a state of residence (one that they most want roads repaired at, police hired, etc..). Get rid of sales tax completely - it's a massive waste of time if states are getting a fair amount. Move MOST fed employees to the state level and remove major govt. contractors that are bilking the public (in the long run companies like Northrup Gruman etc.. are paying the heads billions each - there's no oversight.). Remove the national army and start creating state-armies. Re-write the constitution that changes how states operate within the federal level, and completely change the role of the federal government to be allowed to make laws that are scoped towards fairness across states. Make the fed. government in charge of analytics and cross-state environmental regulation. States would then have the right to make laws that apply to the people.

Some might say this is ridiculous but in a time where we getting to the "end of capitalism" a MASSIVE re-write to how money is moved around is damn fucking necessary.

</comment><comment><USER61> Abolish all of the tax code, pass a federal sales tax, almost entirely do away with the IRS, much more efficient - the end.

<comment><USER10> This would be the absolute fastest way to shift the federal tax burden from the top 20% to the bottom 50% and would likely cause consumer spending to plummet resulting in a recession. It's also a very nice way to punish lower through upper middle class savers.

This may be an ideal solution in theory, but it would likely be devastating in practice.

<comment><USER61> >This would be the absolute fastest way to shift the federal tax burden from the top 20% to the bottom 50%

Bezos bought a 65 million dollar jet... at 20% federal sales tax that would have been 13 million dollars in revenue. He would pay more in taxes in one purchase than I'll earn in gross income in 10-13 lifetimes.

I paid a bit over $8000 in w2 employment taxes last year (21.8% of my gross income, with a 20% sales tax I'd have MORE money and yes, I would buy less crap I don't need and use once), in one purchase Bezos would have paid 1974x what I paid last year.

Never mind that under most federal sales tax proposals, a flat-rate rebate is issued monthly, quarterly or annually to everyone which greatly softens the blow for the lowest earners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> The Obama administration proved that tax agencies can be used as agents of political censorship. The power of government to censor political speech should be opposed at all levels and at all points of the political spectrum. One easy way of doing this is to reduce the size of these governmental agencies.

[https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes- for-...](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for- aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups)

<comment><USER63> It's worth noting that an FBI investigation found no evidence that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, and that the apology was issued by the Trump Administration, who might have a vested interest in making the IRS look bad.

"In January 2014, James Comey, who at the time was the FBI director, told Fox News that its investigation had found no evidence so far warranting the filing of federal criminal charges in connection with the controversy, as it had not found any evidence of "enemy hunting", and that the investigation continued. On October 23, 2015, the Justice Department declared that no criminal charges would be filed. On September 8, 2017, the Trump Justice Department declined to reopen the criminal investigation into Lois Lerner, a central figure in the controversy.[1]

In late September 2017, an exhaustive report by the Treasury Department's inspector general found that from 2004 to 2013, the IRS used both conservative and liberal keywords to choose targets for further scrutiny."

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

<comment><USER40> The government did wind up settling. [https://www.courthousenews.com/justice- department-settles-te...](https://www.courthousenews.com/justice-department- settles-tea-party-suits-irs-scrutiny/) It does seem that this could be argued as just a political move b/c the settlement occurred under Trump and the accusations are against the IRS during the Obama administration. I guess it's left to the reader if they would rather believe the results of the federal government investigating themselves or one party condemning the actions of the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Taxing businesses at all has been objected to as double taxation: the business is taxed, then the residual profits are distributed to shareholders, who are taxed. It isn't a fringe idea: in 2015, many of the Republican candidates in the running for President stated they thought making corporate tax rates 0% would not only "boost the economy", it would essentially remove all tax laws from the books, greatly simplifying things.

Superficially it sounds reasonable. But it isn't. The US military spends $700B+ every year, often times very pointedly protecting the interests of US businesses. The state department has untold people spending billions more opening markets and making trade favorable for US businesses. By and large, the benefits to individuals is an afterthought -- what is good for US business is good for US citizens is the thinking. Large swaths of the government function is spent optimizing conditions for business activity.

So, to get to the point: why should I pay higher tax to protect the business interests of Grumman, and GE, and farmers, and Apple, etc? Apple derives far more benefit and far more directly than I do. Why aren't they paying their portion of the taxes to support it? If part of the cost of doing business is running overseas bases so we can exert influence, that cost should be built into the business expenses as taxes, instead of being externalized to John Q. Public.

The answer is, of course, the super wealthy have captured government and a large part of the media which promotes their interests.

<comment><USER65> > So, to get to the point: why should I pay higher tax to protect the business > interests of Grumman, and GE, and farmers, and Apple, etc?

You'll end up paying those taxes regardless. When companies are taxed directly then those taxes are baked into the prices of everything they sell, just like every other business expense. This functions like an inefficient and regressive sales tax except that, unlike normal sales taxes, buyers don't see it as a separate line-item on the bill.

<comment><USER64> Thank you for replying instead of simply downvoting.

That isn't true. If the assertion is that if Apple has to pay $10B/year more in taxes, than they will raise the price of their products $10B/year and keep a fixed profit, that assumes there is complete price elasticity.

In reality, they might raise the price of their products some, but that is fine -- the people who use the products and benefit from the government's expenditures to promote Apple's business interests are exactly who should be paying for them.

I don't buy Apple products, so I shouldn't be subsidizing their products via taxes.

As for calling it a regressive tax, the costs of production of the product should be built into the product price. If it is abnormally low because Apple isn't paying their share of taxes, that is a market distortion. It is regressive if you only stop at first order thinking. Apple's prices would go up, which hurts some consumers, but they would also be paying significantly more in taxes, which helps consumers.

Let's pick another example. Would it be OK with you if the government decided to donate $5B/year of crude oil to Exxon? Hey, it would make Exxon's bottom line look great. I don't think anyone (except Exxon) thinks that would be right, yet that is exactly what is being done in kind: Exxon not paying much/anything in taxes, and $B spent every year globally to keep the supply of oil flowing. (As for $5B, I just picked a number out the air).

<comment><USER65> > If the assertion is that if Apple has to pay $10B/year more in taxes, than > they will raise the price of their products $10B/year and keep a fixed > profit, that assumes there is complete price elasticity.

No, I'm not assuming that. The quantity sold will decrease, of course, if the price increases. That is a hidden cost paid by prospective buyers who must now do without the good, complementing the more visible cost paid by those who continue to purchase the good at the higher price. A company's profitability (ROI), on the other hand, is relatively fixed—in the end all investments tend toward zero economic profit, or equivalently a level of accounting profit equal to the opportunity cost of the investment, assuming even a moderately competitive market. Higher-than-average profitability invites competition, while on the opposite side if profitability is low then investors put their money elsewhere and the business closes. There is some variation due to factors like brand recognition, other natural or artificial monopolies, and risk, but generally speaking a corporate tax won't be paid from the company's bottom line as most people imagine. There just isn't much flexibility in that area to begin with.

> Exxon not paying much/anything in taxes, and $B spent every year globally to > keep the supply of oil flowing.

This is not a subsidy to Exxon, it's a subsidy to the people consuming oil- based products. If you want to stop subsidizing oil, fine; but that is a completely separate policy decision from where to levy the tax. Anyway it's not like you're proposing to tax Exxon _specifically_ for the cost of keeping the oil flowing, which would defeat the point of the subsidy. A corporate income tax would spread that cost across all products, even ones that have nothing to do with oil, and be paid primarily by people who spend most of their earnings on corporate-produced goods (i.e. not the rich, who tend to spend a larger share on investments).

<comment><USER64> On the first point, the company I have worked for for the past 15 years has had wildly different ROIs during different phases of its life. Assuming that ROI is a fixed quantity will lead to a wrong conclusion.

On the second point, yes, free oil to Exxon will lower the price of gas, and that is a benefit to the consumer. But you assume 100% of that benefit is given to the consumer. In reality, corporations keep as much of the profit as they can and either keep it in their war chest, acquire assets, or distribute it to shareholders.

<comment><USER65> I did say that there is short-term variation in ROI, in particular based on risk. However all economic ventures in a competitive market do tend toward zero expected economic return, i.e. an expected ROI (including factors like risk) commiserate with their opportunity cost. Corporations obviously try to maximize their profits but they don't operate in a vacuum. If they consistently earn higher-than-normal profits then that will attract competition, pushing prices (and profits) back down toward the margin.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


And a Network Engineer Shall Lead Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2009/03/and-a-network-engineer-shall-lead-them/

<comment><USER2> On the other hand, maybe a lot of people got laid off and decided to pad their resume with this certification. If you're up against a lot of other people for the same job, having an extra acronym may be (or seem like) a deciding factor.

Also, certification processes are much more valuable when the infrastructure is young and there aren't that many people who have simply been working in the industry for five or ten years. An apples to apples comparison between the US and China on this basis isn't possible, and it's willfully stupid to pretend otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER3> I bet the number of Sun Java certifications will decline in the future _, but it's probably more a case of less interest in J2EE and the Sun way of doing stuff. So, with my indicator, we're all doomed.

Using Dow's transportation notion, we might look at the number of new truck driver certifications as a leading indicator of the market. However, looking at the certification rate for Freightliner vehicles (a non-existent certification, but fun to think about) is more likely a measurement of the relative importance of that brand of truck than anything macroeconomic. And, rather than looking at certifications, why not look at number of truck miles driven, number of truck tires purchased, etc. Shouldn't Cringly be looking at Cisco's sales data for routers instead?

_ I know nothing about their numbers today!

</comment><comment><USER4> How much did Cisco pay for this?

<comment><USER5> I don't think Cisco was a particularly important part of this article. It just happened to have interesting statistics.

The "doctor-doctor" thing was over the top, though. If that's true, anyone who has ever written a line of Perl should win the Nobel Prize :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the second time Cringely has written about this, the last time being last August: [http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080822_0053...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080822_005393.html)</comment>