Jailbreaking the Degree - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/05/jailbreaking-the-degree/ <comment><USER2> I don't think it's a coincidence that the major proponents of doing away with traditional higher education and questioning the value of a college degree are people with at least one degree (in many instances advanced degrees as well) from very prestigious institutions. They believe that in a practical sense, what you really need to know to perform you can gain more efficiently by doing. They ask "Who knows better than somebody with expensive degrees how worthless they are?"

I completely disagree with that and I believe the opposite is true. Only people without degrees can speak reliably about whether they regret the decision or not. They actually put themselves on the line. I'm not convinced when I hear people with degrees say that they wish they had known that they didn't need them before or that they would have been just as well without them. That's like somebody who paid for flood insurance claiming "who knows better than I how worthless flood insurance is?" Perhaps the guy down the street who didn't buy it and lost his house.

Edit: And to the author's point about iTunes vs buying full albums- that analogy is faulty. There have been community colleges around for many, many years, but the reality is that companies just don't value individual coursework as favorably as an entire degree, particularly one from a prestigious school. The purchaser of a song has very different objectives than a hirer. A song purchaser wants one song and does not want to pay ten times the price to buy an entire album which might have three songs that he likes. Clearly, single purchases are more efficient.

But when it comes to hiring, there is no added cost. If I am hiring for a position with a stated salary, I want the most qualified person I can find. If I can hire a guy with three degrees in Computer Science from MIT, I don't really care about the guy with the Microsoft and Cisco certification, even if those are things that are precisely what you need to know on the job. College is absolutely an intelligence test and screening tool, and people are naive to believe that it isn't. If you pull back and decide you are going to turn down MIT and go learn just the skills you need for your job, there are going to be 5,000 people lined up behind you ready to saddle themselves with debt and work through four years of college to get the degree and you will facing an uphill battle. So in the case of iTunes, a comparable situation is if I had $0.99 to spend on a song, and had hundreds of full albums with that song offered for my $0.99. In that case, I am not going to buy the single song.

<comment><USER3> _College is absolutely an intelligence test and screening tool, and people are naive to believe that it isn't._

If correct, college is merely a wasteful arms race - many people wasting resources to outcompete others in a zero-sum competition for a fixed set of jobs.

Thus, we should tax colleges and education in order to discourage people from attending, as well as construct cheaper screening mechanisms and encourage their use. For example, we could scrap subsidies for education (e.g., state colleges) and replace them with standardized testing centers.

If far fewer people went to college, it would be much more costly for employers to reward wasteful signalling.

<comment><USER2> > Thus, we should tax colleges and education in order to discourage people > from attending, as well as construct cheaper screening mechanisms and > encourage their use. For example, we could scrap subsidies for education > (e.g., state colleges) and replace them with standardized testing centers.

I do not consider myself a republican or tea partier, but I really despise these types of plans aimed at controlling behavior. It works in some cases, but this is not something the government should be mucking with. They've done enough damage to higher education as it is. The last thing the US should be doing is making it even harder for kids to go to college. If anything they should be giving more money to the schools to make it affordable. The problem with college is not what you do or don't learn. Every form of school will involve wasted time. The real problem is the cost to attend.

<comment><USER3> I don't know what republicans and the tea party have to do with this. I'm making a simple economic argument.

Based on your reasoning, attending college has social costs and no social benefits. I.e., if you go to college and I don't, you get the job and I don't. If neither of us went to college, one of us would still get the job.

So your college attendance merely redistributes jobs from others to you, and destroys the wealth it took to educate you. This is a classic example of a market failure and a classic use case for pigouvian taxes.

While helping a few kids go to college would benefit them, the benefit would only come at the expense of others (the guy you won't hire because he lacks a pointless degree). So why do you want to do this?

<comment><USER2> Republicans and tea-partiers tend to favor less government. When people hear somebody say something that coincides with that point of view they often assume the person is a republican.

>Based on your reasoning, attending college has social costs and no social benefits. I.e., if you go to college and I don't, you get the job and I don't. If neither of us went to college, one of us would still get the job.

Not at all. I think people who have a degree appear more favorable if all other things are equal. Many jobs have a degree listed as prerequisite. If neither of us has one then neither of us will be getting the job.

There are just a whole lot of assumptions present in your argument: that a college degree is worthless and that having obtained a college degree is all that differentiates two applicants. Clearly the degree is not pointless if the best jobs are given to those who have them. There is no market failure. If the market for non-college graduates were hotter than the market for college graduates, then college would be free and most would have to close.

<comment><USER3> _Many jobs have a degree listed as prerequisite. If neither of us has one then neither of us will be getting the job._

Many jobs have wearing a suit as a prerequisite. Would employers simply not hire anyone and close their doors if everyone refused to wear a suit?

 _Clearly the degree is not pointless if the best jobs are given to those who have them._

Clearly a suit is not pointless if the best jobs are given to those who have them.

You are completely missing the point. The issue is that the degree is socially harmful while being individually beneficial, _according to your own arguments in favor of receiving one_.

<comment><USER2> > Many jobs have wearing a suit as a prerequisite. Would employers simply not > hire anyone and close their doors if everyone refused to wear a suit?

That's my point. In a market that has many buyers and few sellers, the buyers do not get to set the price. So there would never be a scenario in which everyone would refuse to wear a suit. Creating hypotheticals in which every job applicant acts in tandem is a pointless endeavor. If the employer states that you have to show up at 8, wear a suit, have a degree, accept a certain rate of pay, and never leave before 6pm, you will do those things. If you don't, that's okay, somebody else will. Just like I can't set the price of the iPhone just because I don't like paying the full price. The day Apple has trouble selling iPhones then I might be able to negotiate.

> The issue is that the degree is socially harmful while being individually > beneficial, according to your own arguments in favor of receiving one.

These are inferences that you are making. I do not think that formal education is harmful to society. The U.S. has the greatest higher education system in the world by a long, long, shot. I do not think it is wise for us to try to tear down from within one of our greatest competitive advantages. There is a reason that people from all over the world are fighting to get into our schools.

BTW, I find it kinda curious that you are railing so hard against higher ed. Was it before or after your third degree that you decided education is such a poor investment?

<comment><USER3> _Was it before or after your third degree that you decided education is such a poor investment?_

I didn't claim that a degree is a poor investment for individuals, I claim that the signalling aspect of education is harmful to society. Please try to actually understand an argument before disputing it.

Incidentally, I concluded that education is primarily signalling while I was selling it. I left academia in part because I felt I was creating very little value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Why am I required to finance an entire degree only to be forced to take > courses that I do not value?

One guess is that a reason employers value degrees is _precisely_ because it indicates a willingness/ability to successfully complete tasks that you might not personally value, but which are required in your institutional role. After all, corporations are institutions that plan to require you to do things if they hire you, some of which you might not value.

A somewhat less meta answer is that employers trust standard curricula enough to not be interested in doing case-by-case evaluation of alternatives. So if one person has a "4-year accredited electrical engineering degree", and another person has passed a selection of EE courses they chose themselves, the company will probably prefer the 1st. Evaluating the 2nd candidate requires the company to decide whether that selection of courses constitutes a good EE curriculum (versus, for example, the student having avoided all the hard or math-heavy courses), and most companies don't know or want to know how to evaluate student-customized curricula on a case-by-case basis.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Why am I required to finance an entire degree only to be forced to take courses that I do not value?"

Maybe a kid just out of high school isn't the best judge of what forms of knowledge have "value"?

That's not to say that higher education doesn't need reform (or quite possibly wholesale replacement). It does, desperately. I just question whether a person who (by definition) doesn't possess a certain piece of knowledge is a good judge of the value of that knowledge.

I'm put in mind of my undergrad CS degree -- lots of bitching about how the courses weren't taught in C++ (the "hot" language of the day). Some of the professors even used weird stuff like Lisp! Of course, the professors had been around long enough to see "hot" languages come and go, and were choosing a language thatillustrated the concept under discussion well (which could be Lisp, could be C, could be assembly language, depending on what it was).

Of the classmates with whom I'm still in contact, I can't think of many whose primary language for employment is C++.

<comment><USER3> _Maybe a kid just out of high school isn't the best judge of what forms of knowledge have "value"?_

Perhaps, but he's certainly a better judge than academics who's continued employment depends on getting him to pay for their services. At least his incentives are properly aligned.

When I was in college, my judgement was that the humanities and literature would be useless while advanced math would come in handy. Nothing has happened in the past 10 years to convince me this was incorrect.

<comment><USER4> Judging by what electives students choose when they have the option, anything with the word "math" anywhere in the vicinity is the first thing most students would skip if they didn't have to take it! If many CS students I've known had their way, all mathematical and theoretical content would be removed from the CS curriculum, and replaced with "real-world" programming classes. Less statistics, discrete math, and computability theory; more node.js, Ruby, and advanced git.

Separately from that, on your other comment, I've run into a surprisingly large number of people whose non-technical curricula have had a strong positive impact on their technical jobs. For example, Richard Evans, the AI lead on _Black & White_, _Sims 3_ , and now a new startup recently acquired by Linden Labs, has a philosophy B.A., and credits it with being core to much of his AI design (his current system is based on a logic modeled on Wittgenstein's view of social interactions).

<comment><USER3> It appears that even at the age of 18-22, Richard Evans saw the value in philosophy (as demonstrated by his choice of major).

Of the students who would choose to scrap math, how many are likely to make serious use of their math skills if forced to study math in college?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Why buy a whole album when I only value a few songs enough to purchase? Why am I required to finance an entire degree only to be forced to take courses that I do not value? By bundling education into its most popular format, the four-year degree, we are inevitably adding low-utility courses that the consumer should be enabled to avoid._

So maybe a better analogy for higher education bundling would be with Cable TV?

EDIT: If teaching-oriented professors could start offering CaaS (Course as a Service) of one or a few related courses, then the market would no longer be the profs at a particular school, or the profs in all the schools in town, but rather the best profs offering courses on the Internet from the whole online world, then we could see a tremendous increase of access for high quality education.

Then the most successful profs could "franchise" the syllabus and teaching methods to other profs. (Syllabus as a service.) In the meantime, others could start aggregating collections of syllabi as "majors," "minors," or other kinds of course sequences.

</comment><comment><USER7> As far as credentials, it seems to me like an "online" degree is worse than no degree at all. There is a horrible stigma regarding the quality of online degrees and doubt regarding the judgement of those who pursue them. This perception can definitely change in the future, but I suspect it won't be for a very long time.

<comment><USER8> Historically, yes-- due to the likes of University of Phoenix, etc.-- but this is already changing as large, well-respected institutions like Stanford and MIT embrace different methods of online learning.

Sure, taking an online course (or series of courses) from Stanford/MIT doesn't have the same perceived value as doing the equivalent coursework offline, but the brand name of those institutions lends significant credibility to any work you do associated with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Post the photo to our Facebook Page or Twitter with the caption...

Guess I'll just have to wait this one out for now. Hopefully they'll open it up soon.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else getting an OAUTH error when they try to sign-up with <http://degreed.com> (in the article)?

<comment><USER11> @Nick thanks for the heads up. It is isolated to users without a live FB session. We are fixing it ASAP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _Why am I required to finance an entire degree only to be forced to take > courses that I do not value? By bundling education into its most popular > format, the four-year degree, we are inevitably adding low-utility courses > that the consumer should be enabled to avoid._

That's a problem with the curriculum, not the overall concept of a 4-year degree. There are schools that bundle useless courses as part of the required curriculum just because a tenured prof wants to teach it in a large auditorium. But other schools encourage students to build their own curricula with the courses that offer the most value to them. Brown University, for example, has been doing this for decades. It's not perfect, but it goes a long way toward catering to the needs and desires of each student.

I have two (soon to be three) degrees in some combination of humanities and social sciences, and I've thoroughly enjoyed all but one or two of the dozens of courses I've taken so far. I've been fortunate because all the schools I've attended have been quite flexible in their course-taking requirements. I wish most students at many other universities enjoyed the same amount of choices.

On the other hand, there is something to be said in favor of requiring engineering students, for example, to take a few courses in the humanities and social sciences. If you think you don't need to know philosophy or history to be a good engineer, you may find yourself at a disadvantage when dealing with today's complicated techno-socio-political issues. I would hate to live in a world where engineers did not stop to consider their work in a philosophical and historical context.

Sure, you could study history outside of a college. High school really should teach critical thinking skills. But the reality is that most people would never even get a chance to think critically about topics in the humanities and social sciences if they weren't required to do so by their college's curriculum.

The same goes for requiring humanities students to take introductory courses in math and science. Honestly, every college student should also be required to take a course in practical computer use unless they can demonstrate that they already know the stuff.

EDIT Clarification: There are plenty of other reasons to advocate a reconsideration of the value of higher education as a whole, but a poorly designed curriculum isn't the most important reason. That one can be fixed without ditching the college altogether.

<comment><USER6> _I would hate to live in a world where engineers did not stop to consider their work in a philosophical and historical context._

The parts of the old Soviet Union and China?</comment></comment>


Can't override procrastination settings anymore - <AUTHOR>

For anyone who was also surprised, PG has made good on removing the override switch on the no-procast settings.<p>Now I can't undermine myself.  As much. <comment><USER2> Can I ask for an option to _yes_ override myself? Otherwise I'm going to have to turn it on and off every day, or on weekends.

I use it as a reminder, not as a force.

And you can't even get to your profile to change it once it locks you out!

I don't like it. What if I post something, and I need to edit it? 90% of the time I override, it's for that.

<comment><USER3> Same here, actually; I use it primarily as a reminder. Some days I get a lot of value out of the anti-procrastination feature, as it will warn me when I've been here. I actually start my browsing on work days with HN, because if I get the warning, I know I should just stop.

Also, fairly frequently I open a few articles, and by the time I get back to click to the next page I've been locked out. Override is really handy then.

<comment><USER4> I would suggest a 5 minute reminder before being locked out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you pg. I had recommended giving a karma penalty (-1) for every override, but this works too. It seems others are requesting an "override allowed" setting, which could definitely be useful but as it stands I'm really liking the no override.

</comment><comment><USER6> i love this new feature ... might as well take the retry button since refreshing the pages accomplishes the same thing</comment>


I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/9/14/12892994/facebook-silicon-valley-expensive <comment><USER2> > I'd been granted a few thousand shares when I got hired, and after the > company had its IPO in 2012, I sold all the shares that had vested. … We > could finally rent a house for just our family, no roommate. In order to > afford that, selling stock became necessary every quarter it vested. > Obviously, this is not the path to financial security, but when the sum of > money that lands in front of you isn't life changing, you look to the short > term and what it can do for you right now.

What‽ Selling capital in order to finance daily survival is _terrible_ : the entire point of a working life is to accumulate capital in order to finance a retirement.

Not having a roommate was, literally, a luxury he and his family could not afford.

> But for a person with a family of four who has a certain lifestyle that they > want to try to maintain (a niceish $40,000 car, the ability to go out once a > month and leave the kids with a sitter, a house that wasn't last remodeled > in '70s, etc.) it can be difficult.

If you have a wife and two kids, then maybe buying $40,000 cars is a mistake. Maybe getting a fancy house is a mistake. True fact: children survived into adulthood just fine in the 1970s. Part of being an adult is knowing how to differentiate between essentials and luxuries.

Honestly, with his sort of (admitted) short-term financial mismanagement, I don't think he could survive on six figures in Dallas, Houston, Denver, Kansas City or anywhere else. He'd make the same sort of bad decisions, perhaps with a longer runway to ruin.

<comment><USER3> People want the nice things their parents had, but not on the same timeline. They don't realize that nice things take a while to accumulate.

Yes my parents drive a Prius. But growing up in a family with 5 other siblings, they pretty much drove beaters. And our house started with, as we so fondly called them, the seven ugly carpets of the world. And those were slowly replaced over time. The house we lived in until I was one had slanted kitchen floors - just throw a towel at the correct wall if you spilled.

The point is that our parents affluence isn't the result of a general rise in affluence - it's accumulated. But we often don't think about that when making our early financial decisions.

<comment><USER4> > _People want the nice things their parents had, but not on the same > timeline_

I don't think that's telling the whole tale.

Soon after my parents got married in '74 they bought their first home, brand new. It cost 5 years of my Dad's salary at the time (a new teacher). So with the two of them working, they paid it off in just over 3 years.

Go find me a house for sale now that's less than 10 or 15 years of an individuals salary.

The world is a much different place - so I think people want the nice things their parents had, and they'd be happy if it were even _the same_ timeline, but it's much, much longer.

<comment><USER5> My home is 2-3 years of my annual salary. So is most of my co-workers. Yes, that is probably not true for a teachers salary (although my first home was definitely within 4 years of a teachers salary.)

Are you living in the Bay Area? Is that why medium home prices are so high?

<comment><USER4> > * you living in the Bay Area? Is that why medium home prices are so high?*

Canada/Australia.

Pretty much anywhere you want to live houses are insanely expensive. Upwards of $450k for a 2-3 bedroom built in the 60s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the point is: his salary while not high by SF was high in nearly any other location in the US. In any other location, he and his family could live how they wanted. In any other location, have a $40,000 car instead of a $10,000 or less car is a perfectly reasonable. In any other location, eating out more than once a month would be perfectly reasonable. Having a expensive hobby racing cars is reasonable, just not in SF.

The point of the article wasn't that I am poor you should feel sad for me. The point was: look the Bay Area is so expensive that it is impossible to afford unless you are making an extremely high salary. A good salary isn't enough, a high salary isn't enough, it has to be extreme otherwise you will need to make life style sacrifices to live in the Bay Area.

<comment><USER7> Spending 40% of your annual income on a car while supporting an entire family on that income is grossly irresponsible, regardless of the geography.

<comment><USER8> I guess I'll respond everywhere you tried to make this point. A $40k car will likely come with a 5yr loan that's cheaper than student loans. That'd actually be $8k/yr+interest... which is not 40% of your salary. Find something else to judge the guy for.

<comment><USER7> Even if it's 0% interest across 5 years, it's still _forty thousand dollars._ Whether you pay it all at once, or in dribs and drabs each month, you are paying more than you can reasonably afford.

(To say nothing of the prudence in financing a depreciating asset)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know, it seems like a lot of this guy's problems are totally within his control. I sort of assume he's the only income source for his family, but also has an expensive hobby he doesn't want to give up and also wants to live a life of (somewhat) luxury. I mean, I get it, kids and the Bay Area are expensive, but I think there are better examples of "the cost of living in the Bay Area is out of control" than a guy with a reasonably good job and an expensive hobby he doesn't want to give up.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I don't get it either. What happen to living below your means?

I make 6 figures, drive a 16yo car (2000 accord FTW!), take public transpiration to work, brown bag lunch. My partner works part-time to take care of our child. My home is the right size for what we need.

Why does this guy have to live in a Bay Area? No one is going to weep for you, buddy. You made bad life decisions and you need to deal with them.

EDIT: spelling

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What the title should read is "couldn't afford a lifestyle I felt was befitting someone making six figures in the bay area"

<comment><USER12> "a niceish $40,000 car,"

ish.

High on the list of signs that you've bought far too much into lifestyle inflation is thinking that a car costing 70% of the US median household income is only "nice-ish."

<comment><USER13> Lets take the product of Silicon Valley, the Tesla. Even take the cheap one at $35,000. I don't think that is much to expect in a lifestyle also considering you make more than most people.

Henry Ford back in the day raised wages and cut hours because he noticed not even his employees had money or time to enjoy his product.

I think Silicon Valley is at this same point. Work your butt off to not enjoy life. If your single I think the economics work out but for families the area is very hostile.

<comment><USER5> Nobody "deserves" or should "expect" a lifestyle. Life is simply a series of choices. If you choose to have a $40,000 car on 100K income, then you choose to take money from your stocks because you choose a lifestyle over substance.

I make more than 100k, and I have never bought a car for more than $14,000... why? Because I choose my family over my lifestyle.

<comment><USER14> And no one deserves customers. What silicon valley is doing is destroying the consumers that would be buying its products.

The guy doesn't work at Tesla, but if the average employee in Tesla can't afford their standard model and have enough money left over to live they are not a viable company, as Henry Ford figured out more than a century ago.

It's capitalism 101, you cut labour costs only to find that you've cut demand as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > We knew as our family grew that we wouldn't want to live with a roommate > forever. So when the opportunity arose for me to supplement my salary by > selling my Facebook stock, I took it. I'd been granted a few thousand shares > when I got hired, and after the company had its IPO in 2012, I sold all the > shares that had vested.

> We could finally rent a house for just our family, no roommate. It was > great, but that also meant even larger housing costs. In order to afford > that, selling stock became necessary every quarter it vested. Obviously, > this is not the path to financial security, but when the sum of money that > lands in front of you isn't life changing, you look to the short term and > what it can do for you right now. In many ways, this follows exactly with > the Silicon Valley hustle that many startups fall into. The path in front of > you isn't always clear, so you hedge your bets.

WTF? If your day to day financial survival depends on selling stock as it vests you're either a) an idiot or b) backed into a corner. In this guys case, it should have been obvious when he started the gig that it wasn't sustainable. If not immediately, then when he moved out and started selling stock to cover renting a house.

A pretty simple rule is that you should be accumulating capital, not spending it to cover operating expenses. Sure if shit hits the fan, and it invariably will at some point, you will be spending from capital till you get back on your feet. But it shouldn't be a day to day thing.

<comment><USER16> I agree completely with you, I would stipulate one thing. When starting a new job its reasonable to take a short term hit in the hopes of advancement (and higher wages). So its fine to have a room mate and live a less than desirable life time short term. I think the time to pull the plug though is at dumping the stock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was quite sympathetic until I hit the mini-bio at the bottom:

"Matt Kulka works for Local Motors in Phoenix, Arizona. He loves to drive cars around race tracks, his expensive hobby that he just doesn't want to kick."

<comment><USER18> For me it was:

"My salary was about on-par with what I was making at my last job in Phoenix — just barely breaking into the six figures — but housing costs were significantly different."

Who in their right mind would move to the Bay Area on a Phoenix salary?!

<comment><USER19> Two reasons:

Stock Options

Work at Facebook

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think there is something to be said about living beyond their means but, to me, a new car and home for my family is a fair middle class lifestyle. (You can quibble over the 40k price tag, but buying a 40k car and making it last doesn't have as much of a financial difference as a 30k car over the long term)

I think this article is speaking out against this narrative that techies are incredibly well paid while in reality we mostly work in over priced cities with awful commutes and have a government and industry openly trying to suppress wages.

Any time one of us says "hey, we aren't that well paid" there is always someone to say we should move further away from work, or downsize, or skip having a family, or stick to rice and beans and it's getting old.

<comment><USER7> When you support an entire family on a single income, spending 30% or 40% of your annual pay on a car is irresponsible.

No "ifs," "ands," or "buts." That's just bad financial planning. It's a totally unnecessary luxury that holds the potential to burden the entire family.

Additionally, your definition of "middle class" is quite peculiar. The median wage in the United States is less than $30k. The median household income is less than $60k. Do you really think "middle class" families are buying cars that cost as much as one of their salaries?

<comment><USER8> Does no one here buy cars? I forgive you. A $40k car will likely come with a 5yr loan that's cheaper than student loans. That'd actually be $8k/yr+interest... which is not 40% of your salary. Find something else to judge the guy for.

<comment><USER21> You could also by a nice used car for 10-15k or so, pay cash, and have no payments for many years. People who can afford better will willingly do this to save cash for other things. If you refuse to play the game well it's probably because you have weird ideas about what you "deserve".

<comment><USER8> Definitely. Also, getting a new car that prioritizes reliability is a smart move as well. The author didn't do this though. A nice(imo) new car can be had for less than ~$25k and his $40k tells me he wanted something a little more flashy. I agree these overextended purchases usually come down to someone's ego getting in the way. A direct consequence of our "what you buy defines you" culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _The only problem: It's really hard for a family of four to live in the Bay Area on just one income — even if it's a great income_

In any of the prime real estate markets it's hard to live on one salary. That is not a problem unique to the Bay Area. Furthermore, barely breaking 6 figures is not a generous salary in tech (he even says it was on par with his salary in AZ).

<comment><USER23> Yes. Compare and contrast:

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/152-Sagamore-St-San- Franci...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/152-Sagamore-St-San-Francisco- CA-94112/15195448_zpid/)

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1055-Gilman-Ave-San- Franci...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1055-Gilman-Ave-San-Francisco- CA-94124/15154652_zpid/)

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15320-Swan-Ct-Gulfport- MS-...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15320-Swan-Ct-Gulfport- MS-39503/81696625_zpid/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Having the same problem. I have a lot of job offers for the bay area but can't make the jump because it would destroy my family life due to the high cost.

Middle class families are basically priced out of Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER24> Perhaps... some companies would see that as an advantage? If you were a company who only wanted to hire young people with no family to keep them from working 70 hours a week, then locating in Silicon Valley could be a great strategy.

<comment><USER13> Yes I often wonder if that is a real strategy. Any whistle blowers want to let us know?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Barely breaking 6 figures is an entry level engineers salary in the bay area. Also in the world that I live in single income families are the exception rather than the rule.

<comment><USER26> He was barely breaking 6 figures in 2009. I wasn't around the Bay Area then, but that strikes me probably significantly better than entry level at the time, given the way rents have gone.

<comment><USER27> Back in 2009 you could rent a house with a yard in a nice part of Palo Alto for ~2.5k/month (Or less, my wife and I were paying 1.8k at the time for a small but very nice house with a 1 acre yard). ~$100k (while still reasonably entry-level) went pretty far then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm moving to the bay area to take a job at Facebook in 2 weeks. When comparing all my offers, my wife and I made a budget for each offer to understand the salary differences and their cost of living. We know exactly what we can afford. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this before taking a job somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER29> This guy would get DESTROYED over at /r/personalfinance

<comment><USER30> LENTILS!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Tech is a well-paying job in areas where you need to be well-paid to live somewhat comfortably. It isn't nearly as lucrative in other areas _unless_ you're a remote worker _and_ you negotiate well _and /or_ you work in the right industry (finance, healthcare, law).

At least that's what I'm beginning to notice anyway.

The fiscally responsible thing to do would be to move to New York City, take a $100k+ job, live about 45-60 minutes away in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island or the Bronx, create an emergency fund, get promoted a few times and spend a good while finding a high-paying job in the area you actually want to live in that has a significantly lower COL.

The thing about SF is that it isn't just the rent that kills you. You also get taxed like crazy for everything _and_ , from what I've heard from coworkers over the years, you'll need to have a car to be realistically mobile outside of the Bay (unless you never leave the Bay, of course). Insurance premiums cost more there and CA gas is the most expensive in the nation.

As much as we like to complain about it, public transit in NYC is amazing. You legitimately don't need a car to live there. It's darn convenient in the outerboroughs, but it isn't a necessity and, in many cases, it's a pain in the ass. Speed limits are low city-wide. Expressways top out at 50 and are usually set at 40 because of population density and shitty road conditions. People are super aggressive. NYC is not fun to drive in. Manhattan is much much worse.

Nearly the entire city is reachable by train and/or bus. You can save a lot of money this way.

</comment><comment><USER32> On craigslist, I find 2-bedroom houses in Santa Clara for $2300 [1]. That would give you a very decent commute to Facebook (much better than living in the East Bay). That's $28K/year. His net salary should be around $65K. You should be able to go out more than once a month with the money.

[1] [http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/apa/5780924443.html](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/apa/5780924443.html)

<comment><USER33> I wonder why the author wholesale ruled out apartments when homes like the one you linked to are all together very similar in living space.

On a side note the Bay areas' affordability problem could be greatly reduced if more dense housing stock was pursued. Sadly, I fear too many of us demand living in houses as an unassailable demand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> That's exactly why I chose not to work in the Bay Area. Perhaps I have chosen the less challenginger or rewarding path (I don't know), but my first job as a programmer paid me peanuts(40k) and I lived in a pretty nice place with a roommate; a year later I got another job that paid 84k and got to rent a small house, live on my own, and not have to worry about how much I spend. Entry level pay, even in SoCal, can mean decent living. Entry level in the Bay seems to mean constantly struggling to make ends meet while living with several people. Granted, I know people who get a thrill out of that, and that's perfectly fine, but that's just not for me. Living both in San Francisco and the East Bay taught me that. Was fun, but I like not being a workhorse and having excess cash to spend on my various projects.

Then again, it sounds like tat guy's spending was way out of line. Like many people, he probably blew his money on expensive toys(and a penis car) to gain a feeling of status.

</comment><comment><USER35> Am I the only one who thinks the great big takeaway from this is the guy works for local motors?!? Talk about landing on your feet. I've wanted to work for them for years, but their need for web developers is small and the timing never quite worked out.

</comment><comment><USER36> > The offices are like Disneyland for tech folk. Vast open stretches of > adjustable desks....

I kinda stop reading and just started skimming after that.

</comment><comment><USER37> I work remotely for past 5 years. Nothing beats that if you have small children.

</comment><comment><USER38> the price increase of silicon valley homes partly is affected by all the foreign capital seeking stable, safe investment in US, particularly China's in the last few years (due to China's exponential growth in debt creation). we should see substantial slowdown/decline in the coming months (because China's economy has stagnated, and because the capital control for most normal citizens have worked)

<comment><USER39> I hear this anecdote all of the time. In fact, when I was buying a house I lost two offers to foreign buyers. I've seen studies show the impact of AirBnB on real estate prices, are there similar one for foreign buyers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Facebook has offices in Seattle and NYC too. In NYC you can buy in NJ, Queens or Brooklyn and still have a reasonable commute.

</comment><comment><USER41> 100K aint what it used to be.

</comment><comment><USER42> The higher prices for housing are because of politically induced scarcity through zoning density restrictions. SF, NYC, LA, Boston, DC, London, and other cities suffer from these "market failures" in this case called "economic rents." The result is a regressive "tax" transferring wealth from renters to landlords. Income that should be going towards goods and services are going toward landlords such as Donald Trump instead making landlords far wealthier than they would be in an efficient market.

In NYC, there was formerly a politically induced scarcity of taxi medallions (limited to 13,000) with the result that medallions had a market value for $1.2 million and taxi riders paid higher fares to help cover the higher taxi leasing prices of drivers. Once Uber/Lyft came to town, the politically induced scarcity was no longer occurring as there were many more taxi-like vehicles. The result: taxi medallions dropped in value to $700,000 and Uber/Lyft rides have been getting cheaper (but still far higher than LA, Chicago).

See (Harvard Economist) Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill [http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill- article-1....](http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill- article-1.1913739)

and Financial Times columnist and BS, MS Economics Oxford Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007NIDW1Q/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007NIDW1Q/)

Many people complain about the high cost of living, but the issue is simply political. High tech people, particularly need to get involved in politics to help make housing more affordable for all. Simply fix the "rent seeking" laws that restrict zoning density.

In the 19th century, David Ricardo wrote about the "Corn Law" which placed high tariffs on all grain imported to England with the result that landlords that owned land that grain was grown on realized far greater "economic rents" amounts of money for their land while other people paid for for basic food such as bread. Ricardo went into politics to help reverse the Corn Laws with the result that landlords no longer realized their regressive tax on consumers while food prices decreased.

The housing problem is simply another case of "Corn Laws."

In particular, Google (Alphabet) has a profit making subsidiary called Sidewalk Labs for improving cities.

[https://www.sidewalklabs.com](https://www.sidewalklabs.com)

From the website: "Sidewalk Labs is a new type of company that works with cities to build products addressing big urban problems."

City Labs is in a position to use Google's resources to make housing more affordable. Google owns one of the largest office buildings in NYC and Sidewalk labs is located in NYC, so NYC might be a good place to start.

Like Ricardo's case of reversing the "Corn Laws" this is simply reversing unfair laws that benefit landlords over renters and make housing unaffordable. No increase in taxes are required.</comment>


Parse Powered iOS Table Views: Remote Data Driven Tables in Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/2011/12/28/parse-powered-ios-table-views/

<comment><USER2> If you use CoreData (and you should) you can get the same effect by using a NSFetchedResultsController. [http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/CoreDa...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/CoreData/Reference/NSFetchedResultsController_Class/Reference/Reference.html)

The advantage of using Parse is that it syncs the local store with the store on the server. However, if your server exposes a RESTful API, it isn't too difficult to sync by writing up a bunch of closures using NSURLConnection+BlocksKit.h. [https://github.com/zwaldowski/BlocksKit/blob/master/BlocksKi...](https://github.com/zwaldowski/BlocksKit/blob/master/BlocksKit/NSURLConnection+BlocksKit.h)

<comment><USER3> Parse's SDK makes the syncing significantly easier. I tried a combination of REST + CoreData and also a locally running version of CouchDB replicating with a CouchDB server. Parse was by far the simplest to implement and comparatively surprisingly fast.

The Parse team has done a great job so far and I'm excited to see what other improvements they make. This little exercise is a good intro to their platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a way to export data from Parse? If not, how do you address developer concers about getting locked in to the platform?

<comment><USER5> You can export all your data through our REST API. We plan to offer a one- click solution soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I swear, whenever I start to implement something for my Parse-based app, Parse just goes and adds it to their framework. Stop making my life so easy!

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone thought through the advantages of using Parse vs. iCloud for sync? For a multi-platform app, Parse seems to be the way to go. The only disadvantage I can see is that I ( as a service provider ) have to pay the storage costs of parse, while Apple handles the storage costs for iCloud (including collecting expenses from users who opt for more than the free 5gb).

<comment><USER8> Parse does a lot more than iCloud. You can manage users and share data between users, facebook integration and push notification services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The UI part is easy if you are using Three20 (while some people might argue :p), the backend part seems very attractive as you don't need to have the knowledge to setup the web server/storage for serving the data, and need to worry about the scalability issue etc.

Would be great if you also provide a CMS for editing the data.

<comment><USER5> We do. It still has a long way to go but you can edit the data via our data browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Feature Suggestion: would be great if they automatically lazy loaded images as well.

<comment><USER11> * Check out EGOImageLoading <https://github.com/enormego/EGOImageLoading>

* Or the UIImageView category in AFNetworking <https://github.com/AFNetworking/AFNetworking>

* Or this <https://github.com/anoopr/fully-loaded>

* There are many more...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's like magic. I can just magically sync from server to phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

<comment><USER13> James - who do I need to email for corporate accounts & partnerships ;)

<comment><USER14> enterprise at parse :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


UK Parliament publishes 250+ pages of sensitive, internal Facebook documents - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-05/seized-facebook-internal-emails-published-by-u-k-lawmakers <comment><USER2> discussed in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608658)</comment>


They Live and the secret history of the Mozilla logo - <AUTHOR> https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-history-of-the-mozilla-logo/ <comment><USER2> For those like me who get redirected based on the referrer, here's a web archive mirror: [http://archive.is/UMMCx](http://archive.is/UMMCx)

Alternatively, you can copy-paste the address and open in a different window.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great story. Sadly, by the time I got to know Firefox (and thus Mozilla) the dino logo just looked strange, and seeing the pictures like that it becomes clear why: You really need to make that your design to make it work. It shouldn't be the one small glimpse of the past.

See [https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/now-for-the-fun- part/](https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/now-for-the-fun-part/) for some additional context. There is one small nod to the old design, but nothing picking it up. Or look like [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/) looks now. That's the note on the dino:

> _The classic Mozilla dino head logo served as a symbol of the organization > since our earliest days, but is now reserved for select uses and executions > only. While you may still see it pop up on certain sites and campaigns, > please use the Mozilla wordmark on all properties and materials instead._

A bit sad. A complete sovjet union dino mozilla with the current web design refinement would be awesome (^for some definition of awesome).

<comment><USER4> It's easy to forget how unremarkable the dino seemed at the time. Dino was very much a part of the image, and the site. For a lot of the early dino's and more backstory, see the artist's (Dave Titus) site[1]. He was still there when Netscape was mature[2]. Even the "Soviet" version seemed fitting at the time.

Going on the current progress of Mozilla's rebranding exercise[3] a reimagined Dino doesn't seem likely, and the Dino variation isn't great either. To digress I'm still unimpressed with the rebranding efforts.

[1] [http://www.davetitus.com/mozilla/](http://www.davetitus.com/mozilla/) [2] [http://spectrumstudio.net/cmsimage/9184/large](http://spectrumstudio.net/cmsimage/9184/large) [3] [https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/nearly- there/](https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/nearly-there/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe there's a reason, but why is this linked to webcache, and not jwz? Is this a common practice?

edit: on topic, liked the article, thank you.

<comment><USER6> Because if you link to jwz's site directly from HN, you'll get redirected to this :)

[http://imgur.com/32R3qLv](http://imgur.com/32R3qLv)

<comment><USER5> Ahah nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I clicked on the link, my browser was redirected to: [http://imgur.com/32R3qLv](http://imgur.com/32R3qLv)

It seems there was too much traffic coming to jwz's site coming from HN.

Apparently, Jamie Zawinski has strong opinions about HN.

<comment><USER8> Copy and paste the URL to another tab. It's a redirect based on referer header.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> hahaha thank you jwz for that imgur

</comment><comment><USER10> He neglects to mention some points, which most people probably would get the wrong idea about if they read only his text: The first commonly-usable web browser (since it was written for then-common graphical Unix workstations, MacOS, Windows and Amiga) was actually NCSA Mosaic¹, written by NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications), commonly known as "Mosaic", and was, like much of their other well-known software²³, released with source code under a non-commercial license. _Netscape_ was a later company which was writing a _proprietary_ web browser, and the name "Mozilla" was created because this new web browser was supposed to be a "Mosaic killer"; a "Godzilla" for Mosaic. It was supposed to stop people from using Mosaic and instead use this new proprietary program.

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

② Before the web, NCSA had released good free software versions of TELNET for various platforms.

③ NCSA also wrote and released a web server, which was later patched and re- patched by the Internet community so much that the project name was changed to "A patchy server"; i.e. "Apache".

<comment><USER11> He's not talking about the first web browser commonly used by people with access to Unix workstations, which was basically nobody outside CS departments and industry. He's talking about the web browser that made the web a household word.

It's also kind of cool that you're arguing the history of Mozilla with the guy who wrote a whole lot of Mozilla. I am not in all respects a huge fan of jwz, and I often find his uncompromising style and go-fuck-yourself attitude grating, but it is a lot easier some days than others to understand why his web server is configured to bounce HN visitors to a picture of a testicle in an egg cup.

<comment><USER12> Mosaic ran on windows.

[https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-033/USGS_3D/software/pcwindow/...](https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-033/USGS_3D/software/pcwindow/mosaic/readme.txt)</comment></comment></comment>


Hawking: We need to rethink our attitude towards wealth - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/29/stephen-hawking-brexit-wealth-resources?CMP=fb_gu <comment><USER2> I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK. Switzerland is doing very well outside of EU despite it's literally surrounded by EU members. Of course, there is a risk that UK won't do as good as Switzerland does but it's only risk, it's not established fact yet.

Regarding article itself ... well, it's The Guardian so it's very predictable what they will write about wealth.

Regarding author, it's the same, respected and famous scientist is longstanding Labour Party supporter. With all due respect to mister Hawking, I won't buy socialism in any possible form and any interpretation even from world famous scientist.

I would prefer to enjoy to read his great science books.

<comment><USER3> > I won't buy socialism in any possible form and any interpretation even from > world famous scientist

This is a pretty ridiculous statement.

Do you believe in taxation? Do you believe there are some things that a collective organization of people can do better than an individual - be that organization a family, village, private company, or a federal government? OK, then you buy into and support the premise of socialism.

Socialism/capitalism isn't binary. Don't be arbitrarily afraid of either word or concept, but do be afraid of either extreme, as extremes are always untenable. Moving towards "socialism" by increasing taxation on the ultra- wealthy is a move to restore balance and guide us away from one extreme which has gained in popularity in the past 30 years.

I'm 23 and I live in the US. The fear surrounding terms like socialism/communism to this day, even with my generation, amazes me. My peers have learned to use these terms as an insult without knowing exactly _why_ they are insulting - they just feel a vague sense that socialism is "un- American".

I get that we had to turn on the propaganda machine full blast during the cold war as the threat of nuclear extinction is no laughing matter. But with programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, etc. making up such a huge portion of our federal budget, maybe it's time to rethink our hatred and out- of-hand fear of simple terms that we use to talk about ownership and wealth redistribution.

<comment><USER4> > Socialism/capitalism isn't binary.

This is correct.

> Moving towards "socialism" by increasing taxation on the ultra-wealthy

This is not a move toward socialism.

Socialism is defined by communal ownership of the means of production and exchange. Capitalism is defined by private ownership of the same. These terms are specific in meaning, as they are jargon in the field of economics.

I'm not particularly interested in engaging in a political or economic debate right now, so I'm not trying to pass judgment on what is good or bad, but if you're going to make a post about people mischaracterizing a concept while doing so yourself.

Ninja edit: That capitalism and socialism are often seen in combination with other particular social and economic arrangements does not in any way make these things a component of socialism or capitalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article asks "can possessions stand in the way of fulfillment?" Experience tells me the answer there is certainly yes, they can and often do. I think achieving a cultural shift away from the accumulation of possessions is achievable-- as cities get more dense, as travel becomes more regular, safe and affordable-- and in some sections of culture this is happening already.

The article also asks though if we can truly ever own things vs only custodian them. Here I don't see any shift happening. The principal of property ownership, where property extends to land and to ownership of business corporations, is what largely drives the Pareto distribution of income we experience. This, in turn, defines the disparity between the rich and the poor. So, I'm not sure a truly fundamental shift can or will happen here.

I'm curious to understand the forthcoming results and learnings from experiments in Universal Basic Income which are beginning to get under way. And I think that if robots and AI actually automate away most current human labor, we might be able to rebalance our economy in a manner beneficial to more people. Alternatively, if life extension becomes more and more practical, the fundaments of our economy may be ripe for change. So, over the course of decades or centuries, I can see the equilibria of our economic system and the distribution of incomes and therefore wealth accumulation changing dramatically. But I don't think it happens through any mere cultural shift in thinking nor via incremental policy changes. That may not be a bad thing, but everyone should know that the fundamental rules of the system are unlikely to change dramatically any time soon, without some major impetus to necessitate it.

<comment><USER6> >The article asks "can possessions stand in the way of fulfillment?" Experience tells me the answer there is certainly yes, they can and often do.

While this can be true, and I know a few people who seem oddly compelled to accumulate more at the detriment of the rest of their lives, I find that it is far more common that the lack of wealth stands in the way of fulfillment.

On a different point, I see the market as an efficient way to find the best custodians for things. Or, at least, that is the ideal. The real market is far more complicated, of course.

Inequality is inevitable, and probably desirable. I only have a problem with inequality when those that have more can exploit those that have less. Contrary to common wisdom which is that people must be compelled through desperation to work (an extension of outdated history), I think it is possible for those that have less to have less command of wealth yet still not be completely desperate. Desperation and exploitation are not core features of a free market, Capitalistic system. In fact, I think they are a drag on Capitalism and the free market.

<comment><USER7> >Desperation and exploitation are not core features of a free market, Capitalistic system. In fact, I think they are a drag on Capitalism and the free market.

without making a value judgment, i think this extremely disputable, historically speaking

<comment><USER6> You don't have to dig in history to dispute it, desperation and exploitation are current features of our Capitalist system.

BUT

I think that is more historical accident rather than a necessary consequence of the system. I think we have to work to pull Capitalism out of that swamp if it is to remain viable for the foreseeable future.

But it is so ingrained that these are part and parcel with the free market that suggesting ways to fix it is taken as an attack on Capitalism itself.

In my view, if we removed desperation from the system, one way or another, and allowed people to bargain for a gain rather than to stem losses, it would be jet fuel for the market, the economy and Capitalism as a whole.

<comment> wes-k As long as businesses are profit driven there will be exploitation of both people and the environment.

It takes a trememdous effort to navigate the consumables as to minimize harm to yourself (bad food, addictive & compulsive apps) or the environment (so much plastic!). My point is, removing desperation helps but you still have to navigate the business landmines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He really lost me with the first two paragraphs... Oh, and the title. The Brexit? Really? He's using the Brexit to launch into a soliloquy on the meaning of life?

It's not clear to me that the Brexit had to do with wealth as much as it had to do with sovereignty. It's also not clear that the Brexit will have a negative long run impact on Britain's wealth.

I know this sounds _crazy_ to all the super smart international people out there, but A) the EU's growth sucks and B) it's likely to get worse before it gets better - oh, and C) when it gets worse the Euro could very well go away, making the Brexit crowd look like geniuses.

Look, if you look for fulfillment in money or possessions you are going to be disappointed. This has been a tenet of Western philosophy for millennia. Using this philosophy as a platform to trash the Brexit is disingenuous and beneath somebody as uber super smart as Hawking.

<comment><USER9> You seem to be confusing the Eurozone with the EU. The latter has its problems but is a basically sound institution, whereas the former was and remains a terrible idea without a fiscal union.

<comment><USER10> Sure, great experience traveling to Poland lately, being used to move in the Eurozone.

And I give up on balancing my books with my detailed expenses (cash, credit cards, ...) there. I just have a big "Poland expenses, 1250 €" entry.

<comment><USER11> So you are suggesting that Poland should give up its financial stability (like being pretty much only EU country which did not suffer recession during 2008 financial crisis) and join Eurozone just to help you avoid small inconvenience with reimbursing business trip in foreign currency?

<comment><USER10> The Eurozone is suffering. All economic areas have up and downs. Being in a shared monerary union, you sacrifize some advantages for others: we compromise - I know, strange word.

We are building a stable, long term monetary union. We are learning, we are improving and we will have a strong currency going forward.

Next time another economy area is in distress, as it will unavoidably happen, remember about our crisis, and how we _together_ saw it through.

Nowadays it is fashionable to attack the Euro. When the crisis is mastered, all know-it-alls will praise it. We do not need to care for the ones or the others. We do our thing.

And yes, the most practical consequence for induvidual citizens is that I do not care about currencies, at all. Except when I travel to Poland.

<comment><USER9> Thanks to the magic of currency markets, I don't have to care about currencies either when I travel in Europe, even though I am American. Whenever I buy something, I use my credit card, and the charges are automatically converted to USD based on whatever the USD/EUR/GBP/etc rates are on that day.

The Eurozone can be a great idea, if some sort of fiscal union comes into being; otherwise the Euro will always be undervalued in the North and overvalued in the South, causing imbalances in investment and consumption.

<comment><USER10> So are the carrots you buy ecpensive? In april? Two years ago? Basically, you go to the supermarke, get your carrots and say: whatever, lets just get over with it.

Sure, you can get use to a new currency - it took us the best part of a decade to stop thinking in our old national currencies in the eurozone, and some people, and for some things, old currencies are still used mentally and in conversation.

The good thing in the Eurozone is: I dont need to. A currency must, above all, get out of my way.

<comment><USER9> > So are the carrots you buy ecpensive?

Not a difficult problem: I just look up the latest local-to-USD conversion rates and do the conversion. If you have a largely cash economy, sure, multiple currencies are a bit of a hassle, but with electronic payments and on-the-fly currency conversion, you can do your accounting in whatever currency you want. It does not get in your way. Having a permanently over- or undervalued currency does.

<comment><USER10> Sure you do: the problem is that you dont have the feeling of the currency: only when you pull your calculator and start typing numbers, you have an idea how high or low prices are. I am talking about a walk in the supermarkez, or a shopping mall, where you see lots of prices. Doing that en-masse and continuosly is not feasible for an individual.

Until your google glasses are translating prices in real time, give me my euro.

<comment><USER9> It takes me about a week to get the feeling of a currency. It's more problematic if exchange rates fluctuate by large amounts, but a daily lookup takes care of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very well written, I think this is a great argument once you're comfortable.

Once you have some stability you can take a breath and enjoy a good book and have time to think and appreciate the value of knowledge.

However, before that, and those who are disproportionately being kept out of comfort by the current system (working two jobs to make rent, choosing which bills to pay, etc) don't yet have that luxury to rethink wealth.

</comment><comment><USER13> It seems his premise is "Rethink wealth so you feel better about giving your money to others" I find it well meaning but naive to human nature. It might as well have been called "Ignore human nature". Wealth stems from "taking" resources and wanting to survive. We are in a petri dish of limited resources, with more and more people consuming. Good luck with that math.

<comment><USER14> It's also human nature to share. cf Kropotkin and studies of altruism in human beings. Wealth, as a concept is very much up for grabs. Is it accumulation of resources, the increase of security of resources, the fulfilment of psychological desires, the control of psychological desires, the stable passing on of genes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As an aside, in order to distract myself from my own local decadence, particularly at night when its time to sleep, I have been entertaining myself with an investigation of literature and cultural artifacts pertaining to the lives and living of the 18th Century, or at least: any particular culture beyond the fringe of the last 100 years.

Its only a trivial pursuit, nothing in particularly serious, academic, or even principled. Rather just something to think about before embarking into the nightly darkened garden, of thought and mystery.

I can't help but think it is such a tragedy just how artificial it all is, and has been, for the last few centuries. We have created immense artifice; extreme transfer of responsibility and control at very mechanical, practical, energetic levels of human discourse. The cities we have created, the means we have endeavoured to make available to all, or none, or at least many, simply "to get there" in the human equation: it continues to impress a fiction upon the land. Utterly fictional.

Consider the average airline passenger. How they manage to navigate the labyrinthine means by which the space was navigated, to go from New York to Tokyo. (Or any other place, perhaps Ankara to Cairo, if you like. It doesn't _really_ matter.)

How extreme we have become, we species. That we do not acknowledge our principle accomplishments, beyond all else the universe pitches against us, while follying and crippling ourselves with ghosts and fakery.

Kill the fakery. If it works, sell it. Sell the hell out of it. Humans perpetuate technology first, bullshit second. Never forget the complete nature of the theorem.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Can't imagine why you were downvoted for this. You're spot on to read very old books; my godfather - a historian - insisted on reading books only written by dead people. He may have been a salty old man for the time that I knew him, but he was never unhappy.

I have recently begun listening to a LOT of classical music. Every time I casually new-tab over to YouTube and load up a Tchaikovsky playlist, I think to myself: "Not even the richest kings of Renaissance Europe could instantly summon a complete orchestra and hear a composer's entire repertoire played perfectly every time - yet that can be my reality whenever I wish."

Really reminds me I have so much to be grateful for.

<comment><USER16> Probably because it came across as pretentious.

Recommendations on good history books?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Herodotus's Histories is probably the best place to start. Maybe 50% of it is accurate, as it was common among historians of the day to create functional exchanges of historical figures to simulate the debate of ideas, such as the Persian Magi debating on the kind of government Persia ought to have, between aristocracy, democracy, and autocracy.

Also, and while it is very very modern, John Green's Crash Course World History (and US history) is a great place to start so you have context when you delve deeper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash There will always be people who take great pleasure and submit extraordinary effort to accumulate massive wealth. These efforts cannot be ignored in the prosperous society we have today. We take refrigeration and electricity and indoor plumbing - unheard of for the Founding Fathers - for granted, and perceive those without it as living in extreme poverty.

It is only when the pursuit of individual prosperity comes at the expense and suffering of others that limitations - regulations, taxes - are warranted.

It is a good thing we have a system that incentivizes the creation of wealth. But when the wealthy pull up the ladder, they sow the seeds of their own destruction and suffering for themselves and many others.

One need only look at the history of Venice to see how greed and selfishness can turn a once-vibrant and upwardly-mobile society into a permanent has-been.

<comment><USER10> Poverty _is_ a relative term: somebody without a shirt is poor because nearly everybody has a shirt, not because shirts are absolutely necessary.

Edit: not sure why I am being downvoted. Take the poorest man on Earth today; he is richer than most men alive 20 thousand years ago. I would argue that he would conquer any ancient society.

<comment><USER17> I don't think you understand how poor the poorest man on Earth today is, nor how ineffective that wealth would be for gaining influence in other cultures.

<comment><USER10> Maybe I got carried away. Maybe not the poorest, but a very poor man today has resources at his disposal (via modern societies, no matter how poor) vastly greater than the resources a very rich man could get millenia ago. He can be cured of various deseases, can move around with incredible vehicles, can talk with people very far away from him, has incredible amount of knowledge at his disposal, and _already knows_ things ("the Earth is round") which are very valuable (as in "we invested huge amounts of resources to get to know this"). His power is enormous.

Human nature is such that we feel poor because we only have a bike, while our neighbor has a Porsche, without realizing that a bike is an incredible thing.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash For a remote Afghan, or even a rural Cambodian, life is pretty much the same as it has been for thousands of years. The wealth and means exist to feed and clothe and shelter all humans on earth, but those who actually have means _at their disposal_ choose instead to spend the money on wars and opulence.

Plenty of Middle-class Americans deny that the earth is round, even with all the knowledge of the world at their fingertips.

Potentially, yes, the world is miraculous compared to the past. But for those who are not born into some of that gradual wealth creation (as most Westerners were), they are still very poor and very exploited. Or they are too remote to bother with and so life is hardly any different compared with 100 or 500 years ago.

<comment><USER10> We are talking about different things: you talk about somebody alive today, but basically living in the past. His peers are those in times past, so he is as rich or poor as they were.

I talk about your average "very poor guy" in a modern society: he is just poor compared to his peers, but rich compared to a lot of people.

But no matter who we are talking about: my point all along is that being poor or rich is a relative measure. To say that a person is poor, you need to state "compared to". Usually we implicitely compare to the "average contemporary citizen"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think Hawking has said many important things about wealth and economy in the past. Many economists are very narrowly focused, not considering the bigger picture.

Society and the field of economics have always had to make major changes in response to significant technological change. The industrial revolution ripped apart the old order and fundamentally changed the way people thought about economics.

As Hawking has talked about, I think AI as well will make fundamental and lasting changes to the field of economics, and to how we organize our society.

E.g. I don't think libertarian ideology can survive an AI world. Free market economics makes most sense for the present world but socialist economics might actually make more sense in an AI world.

It depends on how things evolve. Either a rich elite will end up controlling all the means of production without needing workers, creating masses of unemployment, or we end up in a world where everybody is a capitalist. Nobody works, but everybody might own capital they invest in production.

The outcome will depend largely on the marginal cost of production. If 3D printers, robots, AI etc allow production to happen at small scale with similar marginal cost to that of large scale production the capitalism might get dramatically democratized. If not instead we risk a Blande Runner like Dystopia.

</comment><comment><USER19> Will be very interesting to see if the UK economy can actually recover at all with all of the acquisitions. There's a fire sale of sorts at the moment on UK's most valuable companies. The promises of the current prime minister to prevent the few big employers in the UK from being purchased have pretty much evaporated...such is the way of the snake oil salesman. The free flow of super smart labor in the schengen zone was a net positive for most UK companies, and for the foreign labor that contributed to the UK economy. The trick, as Hawking says is to ensure the fruits of the globalized economy is shared by all. In the US we have a huge issue with churn. Industries like coal will never return, however people like Trump promise that they will. What we need is a cheaper university system that provides a means for the children of those former coal miners to move onto something else (or even the miners themselves). Right now, if you're an out of work person in an industry that is gone...there's no way to move on. You can take out massive loans, or join the military to get free education. Those are about the only two practical options for most people (I for one took the military option), and that's not good enough. The managed capitalism that we've developed works well, we just have to remember that the government's role is to manage the economy...not to run the economy. Government should foster an environment for everyone to succeed, not just those who have a more favorable starting place in life (like Trump). Right now people are upset, mad, and often without hope. While I (and just about any other person with critical thinking skills) can punch holes in just about every one of Trumps lightweight arguments, these holes are ignored by the masses because they want to believe that there is a magic cure to what ails them. Unfortunately, like the magic pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Trump's magical cure doesn't exist...just as the pot of gold that sold brexit will never be found.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't understand the reaction to Brexit. It was democracy in action! These things happen, and it's alright when they do!

There are so many countries that are not in the EU. Are they all doomed?

<comment><USER21> [NB: Not an opinion on Brexit]

To say that Brexit is democracy in action, you're suggesting that that alone makes it a good thing. Democracy in action has gotten us many terrible things as well. Democracy, in this form, is mob rule. If the mob is well-informed, it can go well. When the mob is not, it can go very badly.

<comment><USER22> >" _If the mob is well-informed, it can go well. When the mob is not, it can go very badly._ "

That only applies if you have some sort of arbiter to decide whether or not the "mob" is informed. And if you do that, you might as well have a dictatorship, as the arbiter can decide which side s/he thinks is well informed. Or rather, they could decide that groups X,Y and Z are not informed, therefore they aren't allowed to vote.

I know you may not be suggesting that explicitly, but that is the type of thing that I would argue follows from your line of thinking.

<comment><USER16> Are you saying that objective fact and truth is equivalent to a dictatorship?

Are anti-vaxxers living in a dictatorship because we don't give their claims equal weight to those of doctors and scientists?

<comment><USER23> Are you implying that a vote for Brexit is equivalent to being an anti-vaxxer?

<comment><USER16> Not equivalent but comparable in certain ways. The claim I am responding to is that the entire concept of "expertise" is equivalent to a dictatorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For anyone from United Kingdom or curious I can recommend taking a look at the Positive money movement which is about monetary reform.

Posetive money [http://positivemoney.org/](http://positivemoney.org/)

</comment><comment><USER25> "Does money matter?"

i will check with my landlord and let you know.

<comment><USER14> I assume this is meant as sarcasm against a supposed argument against the importance of money.

Hawking argues that money very much does matter.

<comment><USER26> I find the argument to be slightly different.

Today money matters in so much as getting things that need to be done to happen. Things like quality medical care, a place to live, and 'workers' to get those things done.

Money past that, money as a form of arbitrary luxury, is far too transitory. Once you reach that point you have very little marginal change in your situation, status signaling, or other measures; you have reached saturation on the 'good' money can do for you.

I think that most of the people who support Universal-BIG just want to get rid of the wasteful feedback loops in the low end of that equation. Everyone should have good food, good living areas, and good healthcare as a member of society. It establishes a more level playing field for all other activities and removes a lot of the wasteful expenditures of time and energy. It also cuts down on the 'alternative' means of achieving such basic support (ending up in jail or revolving hospitalization and being a drain on society).

Does this mean money should cease existing? No, but for a lot of things it would no longer be related.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The problem with the EU is it has more regulations than there are atoms in the Milky Way.

<comment><USER28> And running a business that serves N countries that don't have a common regulatory framework is dealing with N times as many regulations.

Observe the nightmare that are state-regulated industries in the US. (I'm looking at you, health insurance, finance, etc.)

Now, imagine if each state had its own FDA...</comment></comment>


FastNetMon – very fast DDoS analyzer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pavel-odintsov/fastnetmon <comment><USER2> >What can we do? We can detect hosts in our networks sending or receiving large volumes of packets/bytes/flows per second. We can call an external script to notify you, switch off a server, or blackhole the client.

Watch out when implementing this stuff, it goes wrong way too often. At this point I have hard time not literally screaming at DC techs when my servers get suspended for "UDP flooding"[1] each other.

[1] Otherwise known as OpenVPN

</comment><comment><USER3> Btw, I recommend to use project's site, it's much times more informative than GitHub repository: [https://fastnetmon.com](https://fastnetmon.com)

<comment><USER4> Bizarrely, that site disables not only my trackpad for scrolling, but also my cursor keys. I have to drag my pointer over to the scrollbar and move the page that way, like it's 1995.

<comment><USER3> We are working on it, will fix soon!

<comment><USER5> While you are at it, maybe make it work without javascript as well? Not everyone has it enabled for untrusted web sites, especially here.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, it's very-very complicated to get it working without javascript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's from a CloudFlare DNS Engineer -- someone that knows and likely handles DDoS on a daily basis.

<comment><USER5> That was before cloudflare. But good to know he works there now.

<comment><USER3> Correct, I'm DNS guy right now :)

<comment><USER7> Congrats, Pavel!

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks very nice. At my last place one of the enineers made something similar based on netflow and it worked really well, integrated with FlowSpec for mitigation.

Might give it a look.... even the screenshot of the real time top talkers looks like something interesting for the NOC to have up.

</comment><comment><USER9> Impressive performance and integration. What proprietary products is this disrupting?

<comment><USER10> None, but it's a nice alternative for those on a small budget who would otherwise have nothing at all.

<comment><USER9> Ok, so whats missing? What does the company that bridges that gap look like?

"This personal computer looks like a nice alternative for companies with a small budget for a mainframe who would otherwise have nothing at all"

<comment><USER10> FastNetMon is kind of a hammer: inbound traffic to $x is exceeding bps or pps threshold -> trigger mitigation for $x (i.e. a remote blackhole). This is generally good enough to defend against the least sophisticated and most common attacks such as NTP, SSDP, DNS amplification attacks. Then there's a long tail of other attack types are not volumetric in nature and are more difficult to detect. That's a big part of what you pay for when you buy a commercial solution.

Then once an attack has been identified you want to specify mitigation policies: Customer A gets full mitigation, but customer B needs to be blackholed instead. If an attack is smaller than 10Gbps you want to simply insert some flowspec rules into your edge routers, but if the attack pattern is too random you will have to redirect a /32 to a specialized scrubbing device instead. Larger attacks you might want to announce through a DDoS protection service so you announce the /24 containing that IP address to your DDoS protection service to reduce bandwidth on your own uplinks, and so on. I could go on, I hope you get the idea :)

<comment><USER9> Got it thanks. Interesting. So do the usual router suspects (Cisco, Juniper etc) own this market? Does Google/AWS roll their own solutions? Any interesting startups taking them on?

<comment><USER11> Arbor Networks (now part of Netscout) is the incumbent in this area. Kentik is the disruptive SaaS-based startup.

<comment><USER3> Radware, Nsfocus, A10 Networks also here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> is there anything like this for windows?? (please dont hate me)

<comment><USER3> You could run FastNetMon on Windows 10 with Linux environment and Docker. We have happy users with such install :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> +1 happy user here

<comment><USER3> Thanks Vicente!</comment></comment>


AWS Serverless Application Repository - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-serverless-app-repo/ <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in a fun open source alternative that's actually easy to connect to the outside world and databases, we are building a tool that is the result of 5 years of doing serverless/microservices at various companies:

[https://github.com/1backend/1backend](https://github.com/1backend/1backend)

Right now it's still in very early stages, but I think a lot of companies would gain from having an easy to set up platform that takes away the focus from building various bits of infrastructure and moving it to building actual apps and APIs.

We have a strong focus on the latter (APIs) up to the point of having a small DSL to describe the types your service/serverless function operates on and it generates a type safe client (Go and Angular/TypeScript right now, more is coming) and we publish npm etc packages at build time.

But it's still in an early phase so it's only for the adventurous. I hope you didn't mind the plug. Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER3> Want!</comment>


Doing more with the +1 button, more than 4 billion times a day - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/doing-more-with-1-button-more-than-4.html

<comment><USER2> "Daily views" is a bad metric to measure this sort of thing and to me implies they don't have impressive _interaction_ figures so they're picking the biggest number they have. The only thing that "daily views" proves is that some large sites have chosen to use it, but this is supposed to be about _user_ adoption.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's a good move that they are making +1's shareable. At first I thought I wouldn't want to be spammed by +1's, but if they aren't shared, then there isn't much point to them anyway, is there? And it might not be so bad. But are they going to make +1-ing a 2-click action, instead of one? I'm not sure what to think about that yet.

</comment><comment><USER4> I find it remarkable that google insist on blogging about a service (google+) that is only available to the limited few.

It leaves a sour taste in ones mouth.

'Look at this cool thing' - (that you can't use).

<comment><USER5> I think GMail had a similar very long-lived invite-only sign-up mechanism. I'm sure part of it is you don't want to join a social network thing with zero social connections.

If anyone needs to get in, plenty of invites left here: <http://goo.gl/WTu3Y>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the feature I've been waiting for to really increase my use of G+.

+1

</comment><comment><USER7> I +1'd that page and nothing new happened. I'm disappointed.

<comment><USER8> "We're rolling out sharing and +snippets globally over the next week, but if you'd like to try the new +1 button now, you can join our Google+ Platform Preview."

<comment><USER7> That's got it. Good eye!</comment></comment></comment>