Why you might not want to incorporate in the USA - <AUTHOR> http://thenitai.com/2014/03/12/why-you-might-not-want-to-incorporate-in-the-usa/ <comment><USER3> I am an international tax lawyer and this stuff is my day job. Consider this comment an AMA.

For smaller companies, the bureaucratic cost of international tax systems is insane. For US citizens abroad ... I will just say that my biggest area of growth is helping people shed their US citizenship and tax paperwork/penalties is the number 1 reason.

Anyway. If you are in a position like The One and Only Netai -- or don't want to be -- AMA.

<comment><USER4> It's something I've considered. As a now resident of Hong Kong, I was surprised - and delighted - with how incredibly easy it was to handle my taxes. Front-to-back, I could do the whole thing, including payment, in less than an hour and understand the whole system.

Unfortunately, it is nowhere near so simple in the US, and they have no regard for expats. The US treats its expats worse than any other country in the world. The forms are atrocious. And I could go on about being taxed heavily for services I don't use.

Unfortunately, relinquishing citizenship is just not possible for most, including me. With family and obligations, it's just not realistic. But it is appealing.

<comment><USER3> I think it is Clay Shirky who said something to the effect that bureaucracies have every incentive to not solve problems. Otherwise the reason for the bureaucrats' existence would cease. We won't see solutions from the US government. Ever.

Yes the tax stuff is painful but as in your case there are reasons to keep the citizenship.

<comment><USER5> Actually bureaucracy was invented to battle corruption. But back then you really couldn't call it corruption, because without bureaucracy there were no rules or laws that could be faithfully executed or their faithful execution monitored. Kleptocracy and outright feudalism was the norm.

So in essence, without bureaucracy there is no corruption just as there is no shadow without the light.

Whenever bureaucracy has to be simplified, keep in mind that the potential for abuse usually increases unless the legislators take very much care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> workhere-io As the article states, Denmark, while having high taxes, is very business- friendly: Very little bureaucracy, almost zero corruption, English-speaking population, relatively cheap apartments ($1,850 per month for a newly constructed two-bedroom apartment in central Copenhagen) and very low expenses of health care and firing people. Also, while wages are generally very high, they're not high compared to Silicon Valley wages, which is an advantage if you want to start a business here.

We rank as no. 4 on Forbes' list of Best Countries for Business ([http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for- business/list/](http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/)) and as no. 5 on World Banks' Ease of Doing Business list ([http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings](http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings)).

So what's bad about doing business in Denmark? The cloudy weather (think UK) and the personal income taxes :) The corporate tax isn't particularly high, though (24%).

<comment><USER6> How does that translate to software startups? I haven't seen many on HN, for whatever that means.

<comment><USER7> I'd be very cautious about running a software startup in Denmark. If you succeed great, but Denmark doesn't have the sort of easy bankruptcy laws the US has and you have to pay your employees 6 months wages if you go under. So if your startup fails you might be in debt for the rest of your life.

<comment> workhere-io _Denmark doesn 't have the sort of easy bankruptcy laws the US has_

Lots of Danish companies go bankrupt without it affecting the personal finances of the owners. It all depends on the kind of company you form.

 _you have to pay your employees 6 months wages if you go under._

Source? AFAIK, as long as your business is alive and well you pay a small amount of money each month to an organization which will make sure that if you go bankrupt, your employees will get paid anyway. This means you don't have to pay anything if you go bankrupt. [https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/Pages/Compensation-if- employ...](https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/Pages/Compensation-if-employer-is- bankrupt.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really don't understand this fetishization of the US for business. If you want to be sued into utter oblivion and live on the streets with a nonexistent social safety net I guess it's all right. I'm in Ireland and if you want to start a real business (not some rinkydink app that mysteriously needs €30 million in funding so you can fail more spectacularly) the climate seems quite good.

<comment><USER9> As someone who has been in business here since 2007, i would stop you right there!

We have our share of a bureaucracy (example: took 6 months to get reply from Revenue as to what VAT to pay or not on sales of hosting packages, 23% sales tax (VAT) on customers from EU-28 was the answer eventually)

and you quickly realise there are 3 types of companies here:

1\. Large corporations setting up shops to launder money onto somewhere warmer in Caribbean, these often dont hire many people or pay much in any tax despite moving billions (example Apple in Cork)

2\. Small indigenous companies who dont receive much support, run by small families who never really grow to become large companies EU or worldwide, ask anyone outside of Ireland to name an Irish company beside Ryanair! And no Guinness are UK company

3\. Zombie companies still clinging on from the haydays of the last boom, supported by taxpayers bailing out the banks, surviving thanks to the inbred gombeenism that is still prevailent despite the largest recession in any of the developed countries since 2007, see this great lecture [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LCofepdUzE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LCofepdUzE)

<comment><USER10> Sorry, I have to disagree. I have run a small software consulting business in Dublin for nearly ten years. The one thing we get right in this country is our pro business climate. It is easy to set up a company, there is a lot of support and advice available. I think we do this well...

Two caveats though:

\- You DO need to get a good accountant to get advice on international VAT charges as they are complex (I suggest bypassing them by using a company like FastSpring that manages them on your behalf).

\- Small business owners should have the same social welfare security net as everyone else (I think this might be changing).

I agree with you on the inbred gombeens and cute hoors, but thankfully there seems to be less of them in the tech sector :)

<comment><USER9> re: fastsrping

"You have the option to pay either 8.9% flat or 5.9% plus $.95 per transaction. "

Wowza, thats steep!

edit: Sorry but experience has been different here in west, in another lifetime I worked on an "innovation partnership" with EI, it was nothing more than a way to funnel state money to politically connected "friends", the business idea was crippled from day 1 but that didnt matter the objective was transfer money, which as as a taxpayer was sickening.

Sorry for being cynical but I have many years of experience in business here, and seen it all in my interactions with state bodies. Maybe in Dublin they manage to put on a better show or things changed in last few years.

<comment><USER11> > re: fastsrping

> "You have the option to pay either 8.9% flat or 5.9% plus $.95 per > transaction. "

> Wowza, thats steep!

FastSpring customer here.

First, they handle lots of boring and complicated stuff for you, not just taxes. How much would it cost you to accept all major credit cards, PayPal, checks and (international) wire transfers, and provide customer service for all of those transaction types?

Second, if you sell the more expensive B2B stuff like we do, and/or sell lots of your stuff through them, you can ask for a custom rate.

<comment><USER9> I see, still thats quite a bit especially when need to hand over a large chunk on any sale from Irish/EU28 customers in tax!

Currently working with Elavon for credit card payments (cant disclose exact rates, but much cheaper than Stripe),

completely avoiding Paypal who can go and f&*k themselves,

and getting several of the larger customers to pay via SEPA bank transfer or bitcoin which have nearly no fees.

<comment><USER11> > I see, still thats quite a bit especially when need to hand over a large > chunk on any sale from Irish/EU28 customers in tax!

I am not sure I understand what you are talking about. If we set the price at $1K, we get from FastSpring $1K minus their commission, whether the customer has paid the EU VAT or some sales tax on top of that $1K or not. And it is FastSpring that does EU VAT remittance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Whilst I do not wish the hell that is American business regulation on anyone, I am at least happy to see some Europeans realizing that America does in fact have more onerous regulation, all things considered, than nice nations like Denmark.

Scott Sumner of Bentley University, in Boston, has written on this topic quite a bit. Sumner, in fact, considers Denmark _the most free market oriented non- postage-stamp nation on earth_. A sample:

On taxes: [http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=24759](http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=24759)

On regulation: [http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=21601](http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=21601)

On inequality: [http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=22400](http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=22400)

<comment><USER13> >"than nice nations like Denmark."

Qualify what you mean by "nice."

<comment><USER14> On the next line, he did: "the most free market oriented non-postage-stamp nation on earth".

<comment><USER15> What is a postage-stamp nation then?

<comment> workhere-io Tiny nations such as Monaco, Liechtenstein, The Vatican, San Marino, Andorra, etc.

<comment><USER16> A lot of Americans, having been denied a proper geography education, consider Europe itself to be a postage stamp.

If challenged they'd probably assert the whole thing was smaller than Texas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> And ... the article doesn't touch on it, but that goes triple on personal tax issues -- especially if you do not sever your ties to your previous states of residence.

The US tax code, as evidenced by FBAR and FATCA, assumes that the only purpose of any financial transaction or account outside the US, is to hide money from the IRS. You have to report each and every "account", with contact details at the institution, every year, on two independent forms (similar yet different), as well as every transaction in securities (if you can actually do them anymore - most places won't even let you if they know you are paying taxes in the US).

If you are not a US taxpayer already and planning to do anything in the US, be sure to talk to a CPA that specializes in those kinds of things (preferably, one who is also familiar with the treaties and tax code in the country you are moving from). You need to do this both on the business front and the personal front, or you are likely to be seriously and horribly surprised one day.

<comment><USER18> That's actually a huge problem for US citizens living in Switzerland.

Since the US nowadays puts so much pressure on Swiss banks most - if not all of them - are extremely reluctant to open bank accounts for US citizens.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not only an issue for US citizens, also for people who have been with the same bank for 30+ years and now leaving abroad. You can either pay tones of fees and at least have $50k in the account or you are forced to take your money elsewhere.

Luxembourg and Lichtenstein will gladly take you money, though ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> * You could have saved yourself a load of headache and incorporate in Delaware.

* If you don't have a physical office in each state you don't have a presence there. You shouldn't have needed to pay sales tax. Amazon only pays taxes in states they have a physical presence (warehouse, office, callcenter).

<comment><USER20> Hiring an employee in another state may create a nexus in that state, and this may require you to file income tax in that state.

For example, if you incorporate in Delaware, and then hire someone for >$50k in Texas, you may have to file company income taxes in Texas. Not that Texas income attributed to your company (or partners) will be much, but, computing and filing is best done by hiring an accountant.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure about EU law - but if you have a company in Denmark, and want to hire someone who works in Portugal as a permanent employee, and not a contractor, what do you need to do?

<comment><USER22> Not sure about Portugal but suspect it's not much different than other European countries. When I did a freelance job for Nokia in Berlin I effectively worked for a Swiss company, which sent me off to Berlin. I registered myself in Switzerland, got a social security number there, and paid my income tax in Germany. As far as I understand it, Nokia paid the Swiss company, who paid their tax in Switzerland. Much as you'd expect - you (be it an organization or an individual) pay tax in the country in which you're situated.

<comment><USER21> What you've described is kind of complex. I'm asking about where someone lives and works as a _permanent employee_ (and not a contractor!) in Portugal or Germany or whatever, for a company that is in Denmark.

<comment><USER23> As far as I know/understand the company would pay its own taxes in Denmark except for employment-related tax, they'd have to abide by portugese laws for those (e.g. social security schemes and the like) when in comes to the contract of that specific employee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > In the US, however, it's like being in the 70's in Denmark. In a country, > where the NSA supposedly reads all my email, knows how much money I make, > what I ate for breakfast and what color underwear I prefer, I cannot report > electronically to the authorities!

Well, the plan was to keep the incredible advancements in (mass surveillance) technology secret from the citizens, in order not to be stopped.

<comment><USER25> 'I cannot report electronically to the authorities!' \- I am amazed. In the UK, individuals and virtually all companies and organisations must file their Company Tax Returns online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Call me stupid, but the only reason why I incorporated an LLC in the States is because I wanted get access to the Stripe API for production (yeah, it's a huge compliment to the Stripe guys ;)

The payment gateways in my country are shit..Also, the US account is only used for the payment gateway, all the IP of my software is owned by the company in my home country. You know, just so someone doesn't sue me for rounded corners and having anchor links on my webpage, stuff like that.

So far so good, I just report EFI (Effectively connected income) to the IRS, which means only the businesses that I do with USA, all signups from other countries aren't taxed by the IRS believe.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you. The payment gateways in DK simply suck. However, Braintree and Stripe are now all over Europe too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is this a test of whether anyone actually reads these articles? Every 3rd paragraph has a viagra spam-link inserted in the middle of a sentence.

<comment><USER28> > Is this a test of whether anyone actually reads these articles? Every 3rd > paragraph has a viagra spam-link inserted in the middle of a sentence.

Eh.. What? Are you commenting on the wrong article by chance? I don't see any of that. If you're even remotely serious I'd take a good look at your machine/system.

<comment><USER27> I'm reading on an iPad, so the risk of system infection is negligible.

However, I just switched on my home VPN and the links disappeared. Time to talk to someone in netops, methinks.

<comment><USER27> Looks like a hacked wordpress install.

[http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2012/10/09/four-malware- infec...](http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2012/10/09/four-malware-infections- wordpress/#pharma-hack)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So where's the optimal location to setup a no-physical-location-required business?

I've heard Hong Kong, Singapore, Delaware...any thoughts?

<comment><USER30> Mauritius: the best place to do business in all of Africa. Good connectivity, great tax rates, no corporate gains tax, awesome beaches. [http://www.investmauritius.com/](http://www.investmauritius.com/)

<comment><USER31> Interesting option. However, the "invest mauritius" website isn't even loading for me, which perhaps isn't a good sign for this "good" connectivity...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I had a similar experience.

I run a france-based company specialized in online advertising and I wanted to expand our activities to the US, who does not? Obviously France is way worst than Denmark and the US for business, tax and work laws, so I can't really relate for the tax part.

I relate mostly for the visa stuff. What I am getting from the OP post, Nitai was doing L1-A. I have been doing L1-A too. (I recognized the list of documents scanned the OP has posted! :) ) Same hassle, same huge amount of documents needed, we didn't give up though after the first request for evidences but the requirements are kind of high so we finally didn't get it.

US now sucks for immigration and it seems to worsen. BUT, Europe seems harder too than before for immigration. It seems a tendency that in the world with Internet, cheap transportation and desire for better file, people immigrate more and countries make stronger bureaucratic walls.

That's sad. :'(

<comment><USER33> Sorry to hear L-1 was unsuccessful for you. Care to share what the eventual denial reason was?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Yeah, our tax/employment/visa system sucks, although European rumors of our impending demise are greatly exaggerated. If you're not from the USA it is understandable that you may not be aware of the nightmare that is our state legislation. Our states are like grumpy siblings in the big dysfunctional family we call our nation. They each have their own method of handling taxation and employment and each have their own irrational set of processes. As a nation we could certainly improve the way we handle such matters.

</comment><comment><USER35> A lot of this could have been solved by (pick a few):

1\. forming a 1099 relationship with your devs if they weren't working full time.

2.Using a Personal Employment Organization.

3\. Doing your research before blindly incorporating in Texas. We could debate for ages the merits of the state and federal system, but if you were going down this whole road of opening a company in another country and hiring there, then it would have been useful to talk to a tax lawyer and an accountant who are familiar with the issues involved.

TLDR;Europeans whining about things they didn't research, again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who said we didn't get professional lawyers and CPA's?

<comment><USER35> if you did then please name them so I know not to use them. Hiring employees in other states should be bread and butter for any tax accountant working with businesses.

<comment><USER36> As I read the article, hiring the employees wasn't the issue at all.

Nitai was just aghast that the laws were so strange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think the frustration with the various state differences is less interesting, to be honest. That's part of what makes the US great IMO - <USER2> have to compete with each other as people and businesses can vote with their feet.

The difficulty you encountered during what I would have thought should be a routine L-1 is most concerning & perplexing. I really never understand this point - more than a million new green cards were issued in 2012 [1] but you can't even easily get a temporary work visa.

To make matters worse every year 50K new green cards are issued to completely random people, I mean it's a lottery after all [2]. Why does the US want to hand out residency en masse and then stop people who can create jobs and grow the economy? As an outsider looking in I would think you're getting the worst of both outcomes.

I don't believe there is a good answer. Regrettably decision making has become so paralyzed in the US Congress and Senate and the whole machine only exists to serve itself.

[1] - [http://www.voanews.com/content/us-issues-million-green- cards...](http://www.voanews.com/content/us-issues-million-green-cards-and- naturalizes-757000-in-2012/1627155.html) [2] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa)

Edit: references

</comment><comment><USER37> "In Europe, you can live in whichever country you like. Most countries here seem happy to receive taxes."

I think the analogy is the same for states in the US - yo can live in any of the states and they'd be happy to collect your taxes. When your business has a substantial business presence in a particular state, it expects you to start reporting there.

States in the USA are like countries in the EU, except they all have the same language and restaurant chains.

</comment><comment><USER38> > We sent endless amounts of documents, translated documents, notarized > documents and copies of this and that. ... a detailed list of all > transactions from our Danish bank accounts for the past 3 years. ... our > lease agreement for the office. ... pictures of the office from the outside. > in Denmark and the USA. ... pictures of the inside – and we needed to make > sure that the pictures had employees in them. We had to get the main lease > agreement from our lessor to prove that they could actually sublease to us.

> ... We needed to explain, why we needed the space. We needed to explain, why > we didn't need more. Then why we didn't need less. Then we had to send > copies of all Nitai's diplomas. Then we had to explain, why nobody else > could run the operation in the USA for us.

I've read that we do this shit to make sure that people don't come here and take advantage of the business and benefit paradise that we've created.

I have this picture of the US as a 1970s asshole dressed in a leisure suit, wide collars and bell bottoms and a vest, who think's he's God's gift to women, where actually everyone is laughing at him for the clown that he his. And he rarely gets laid, despite bragging to the contrary.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here in the EU the EU has a reputation for being extremely bureaucratic and hard to fathom. As the writer points out, you ain't seen nothing. Just imagine 28 members plus privileged partners agreeing on regulations for international trade through bilateral agreements.

And probably every policy that is less bureaucratic is either quite small or has bigger problems with corruption.

</comment><comment><USER39> Hmm, Seems the Google Cache version of this article is full of viagara links? - [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xBaBObi...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xBaBObiy8FMJ:thenitai.com/2014/03/12/why- you-might-not-want-to-incorporate-in-the-usa/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cleaned it up. Should be fine by now. But still working on it.

<comment><USER39> What was the problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> It looked like someone got access through a plugin to the htaccess file and some db entries.

This article helped ([http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/07/understanding-and- cleaning-th...](http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/07/understanding-and-cleaning-the- pharma-hack-on-wordpress.html)) though I only found one db entry. However fixed the htaccess file.

<comment><USER40> Unfortunately there's still stuff there when viewed from a Google IP - [http://i.imgur.com/59qW1EM.png](http://i.imgur.com/59qW1EM.png) (Source: I'm currently at my desk, at Google.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Done just about everything and can't get get it out. Funny is that it only exists in this one article. Rest of the site is ok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Solely from the taxation perspective, my home country now looks surprisingly friendly for small IT businesses.

We have a so called Simplified Taxation System for small businesses (not just IT.) Basically, as a company we can choose to pay either 6% of annual revenue, or the bigger of 15% of profit and 1% of revenue. That's it, no VAT or anything.

As far as wage taxes go, there is a 20% Unified Social Tax charged on the wage amount before income tax. Moreover, there is an annual cap on that tax, which a senior developer in a big city is likely to hit as early as mid-year. Otherwise, small IT businesses can qualify to lower that tax to 14%. All that's left after that is the income tax - 13% flat.

Which country you would ask? Russia. That's why I wrote "Solely from the taxation perspective" in the opening statement...

</comment><comment><USER13> > All of a sudden, we were forced to figure out, how much we actually sold in > each of those states, where we hired people

Not to be offensive, but differences in state rules should have been expected, given the name of the country. How hard do you think it would be to get a random sample of 50 people to decide on a movie? Now swap people with territories and movie with governance.

This blog post is just ranting and whinging that some paperwork had to be done when starting a business on foreign soil.

I worry about the quality of Razuna as a product if attention to filling out a form is a huge ask.

<comment><USER41> After having done business in many other countries you begin to realise that certain countries have a love affair with needless bureaucracy; the US and it's fragmented federation being one of them. Take Australia for example; even though it is a federation of states (and territories) like the US it has one uniform goods and sales tax that is consistent across the country. In fact states regularly come together to share best practice between legislation and administration in order to increase efficiencies within the country. Even road laws (which are a state matter in Australia) have been deliberately homogenised between states. Even countries like the UK with it's constituent nations and territories work hard at having a uniform and efficient system for businesses to do what they need to do.

Saying "Just deal with it" is a cop out that will end up consigning your country to a worsening economic future. Tourists are already turned off from coming to the US because of the TSA issues. Having a "Just deal with it" attitude will also drive away business. This will lead to a worsening trade imbalance and the joys that come forthwith.

<comment><USER13> While this thread is bound to fill with anecdotes...

> Tourists are already turned off from coming to the US because of the TSA > issues.

I'd love to agree with you, but there's that pesky reality that disagrees with your claim:

[http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/a-record- year-f...](http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/a-record-year-for-new- york-tourism/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0)

>Even countries like the UK with it's constituent nations and territories work hard at having a uniform and efficient system for businesses to do what they need to do.

Population UK: 63mm Population USA 310mm

and support your claim that the territories work hard at having an efficient system for businesses.

> Having a "Just deal with it" attitude will also drive away business.

The paperwork really isn't hard. What makes you think that filling out some tax forms is keeping people from opening up shop in America?

<comment><USER17> > The paperwork really isn't hard.

Yes, it is. Many of my friends are business owners, most of them have some international business. I've been in touch with a variety of tax professionals in different countries through the years.

In the last 10 years or so, I've seen more than one business or partnership outside the US state in its charter that "shareholder may not be a US tax payer, and may not sell his shares to one, and will sell his shares to someone who is not if he becomes one", because of how complicated it makes things.

If you think US paperwork is sane or is not hard, it is probably because you did not have enough exposure to it, or alternatively, not had exposure to a saner system.

Objectively: US Federal Tax code is >71,000 pages (as of 2009 when I checked - probably longer now). And it applies to every american. NYS tax code is some 15,000 more pages; if you are doing significant business in NYS, that's about 10 times as many details to be aware of than in any other country that I'm aware of.

<comment><AUTHOR> Spot on ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So if I'm neither american or european. Is it actually easier for me to move to europe, get a visa there and start an european company than an american one?

<comment><USER43> Probably easier in Europe, is my guess. Few first-world countries are worse than the US. Note that the EU is not a uniform place, so you need to do a bit of research on which country you want. As noted previously, the Scandinavian countries are good places to start. They all speak English as well, knowledge of the relevant Scandinavian language is not required for basically anything.

I would assume the same is true for Switzerland and The Netherlands. Think twice before going for Germany (a popular choice for many good reasons not including bureaucracy) and don't even consider the southern countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So seeing all these problems, how are YC companies solving them or better yet how do they handle the whole process to avoid this? PG said they are incorporating in Delaware but their offices most probably are in CA. Shouldn't this be a problem being in different states? Or it applies only to foreign related companies? Thanks.

<comment><USER45> It's pretty common to incorporate in Delaware even if you have little or no physical nexus there, for a variety of reasons: [http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/brandywine-to- broad...](http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/brandywine-to- broad/18206-why-do-so-many-corporations-choose-to-incorporate-in-delaware). This probably applies more to large companies though. I imagine there's some overhead relative to incorporating locally if you're a small business.

What constitutes a physical nexus can be a bit hard to define at the margins. (See e.g. Amazon's fights with a number of states.) But it usually means you're selling something there as opposed to just having employees. A physical nexus usually just relates to collecting sales taxes though. I've never heard of having to incorporate in additional states although maybe that's sometimes the case.

(I know that the small NH company I used to work for certainly didn't incorporate in additional states when they hired non-NH residents. They DID have to handle state withholding on payroll but that sort of thing is handled pretty transparently by payroll processing companies like ADP.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Riiiight. Because you can do the same in the European Union and get less paperwork, in one language? How do you comply with Spanish and Italian employment requirements, by registering and filing paperwork with Danish employment authorities, in Danish? That's hogwash.

</comment><comment><USER47> As a US based startup founder, this was an illuminating read. And this part in particualar is brilliant:

"I immediately sent an email, to nobody in particular, asking the NSA to get those tax figures themselves and pass them on to the IRS"

</comment><comment><USER48> Denmark's defense budget is really small 3.2 % of government spending vs 18.2% for the United States. Therefore, Denmark has much more cash to spend and is a richer nation relying on US for defense.

<comment><USER49> The US gets considerable economic and political advantages from that defence outlay. It's quite normal to park a fleet outside someone's capital (in international waters) as a show of political force. It's still a ridiculously high percentage, but the concept of the World Cop needs to be put to rest. It's more like World Vigilante Strongman.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's indubitable that the nordic countries are well-run places. Occasionally though, the amount of "smug" they export is a bit on the high side.

<comment><USER50> Is being frustrated and correct the same as being smug?

<comment><USER21> Smug doesn't mean _wrong_ , it means being a bit loud proud about being right.

<comment><USER51> Sort of like this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD9d0ZrBnLE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD9d0ZrBnLE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> My biggest hurle is payments processors. Everything good work in USA (think stripe).

So, if not USA, when? That make possible to be in latinamerica but be incorporate elsewhere?

<comment> workhere-io [https://www.braintreepayments.com](https://www.braintreepayments.com) is just as easy as Stripe to use, and can be used in Denmark and other European countries right now. Stripe is coming to Denmark soon and is already in several other European countries. I don't see the problem?

<comment><USER52> "to be in latinamerica"

I'm in a dark corner on the planet on this...

<comment> workhere-io [http://adyen.com](http://adyen.com) might work for you.

<comment><USER52> The website look truly dated, and they not answer the emails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The requested URL /2014/03/12/why-you-might-not-want-to-incorporate-in-the- usa/ was not found on this server.

</comment><comment><USER54> How big a threat are patent trolls while incorporating in the US? Companies get sued for scanning and emailing documents!

<comment><USER55> Its not incorporation itself that attracts patent trolls. They go after the scent of money. Like, after you announce a round of funding, a troll will suddenly realize you are 'infringing' on their patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Any ideas on how it would work if I inc in India, but operate in the US (I'm in the US on F1 visa)

</comment><comment><USER57> This article is funny. Makes it sound like the USA is all complex, in the stone age, etc. I lost it at the green card part/to work in the USA was hilarious as the USA grants so many of those it isn't even funny. That's the whole point of people in this country complaining that foreigners take our jobs.

</comment><comment><USER58> Spot-on. Also, don't get me started on mobile internet and broadband. Every time I go to America it's like going to a 3rd world country.

<comment><USER59> By definition the US can't be like a 3rd world country (hint: 3rd world country is not what I think you mean to say [1])

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World)

<comment><USER60> Since we're smugly throwing around Wikipedia articles: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simile)

<comment><USER59> Had you seen my body language when I posted the comment, you might not have decided that it was made out of any sense of smugness.

NOTE:

Since my comments in this thread were downvoted, implying that they were not taken in the spirit they were intended, my contribution to this thread should be considered obsolete. I'll leave my original comments in place to serve as a reminder to myself to be careful about what I say around here in future.

[OBSOLETE]

<comment><USER61> No need to play the martyr. It's a tangential issue. If you brought it up in conversation people would say something like "ha ha yeah, you know what I mean" and continue discussing the original topic.

There it quickly dissipates because voice is quickly damped but here it is just noise that takes time to be damped out.

<comment><USER59> I absolutely am not playing the martyr. I raised an issue that I felt was of importance. The fact that others disagree is something I'm willing to live with, but it by no means sways me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> You can't just buy 'Murica with money!

</comment><comment><USER63> why are there a lot of links in this article referencing cialis? Site been hacked?

</comment><comment><USER64> whenever someone is boasting about how the scandinavia is a paradise I'd suggest reading this article in Guardian

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian- mi...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-miracle- brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden)

<comment><USER65> There's a good follow-up to your article, where 5 writers answer:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/05/scandinavian- mi...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/05/scandinavian-miracle- denmark-finland-iceland-norway-sweden)</comment></comment>


Hipmunk now indicates which flights have Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipmunk.com/post/7010196985/new-find-flights-that-have-wi-fi <comment><USER2> Unrelated but I have to point it out since it happens constantly...

If you're a start-up and you're directing people to your blog, please, please, please make an obvious and easy link from the blog to your startup's homepage. Don't hide it in the sidebar, don't make the 'home' link on the blog go to the blog's homepage, don't waste the damn traffic.

Make it brainless for me to get from your blog to your startup's homepage.

<comment><USER3> Quick advice from your friendly neighborhood SEO: putting your blog on a domain that is different from your website is an acceptable business decision if Google rankings for your website do not matter.

<comment><USER4> so would you say hipmunk.com/blog/bleh is better than blog.hipmunk.com/bleh ? I've seen this debate before with googlers debating it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate to be that guy, but hasn't Kayak had this feature for a really long time?

Hipmunk is great and all, but I fail to see how a travel site adding an icon is relevant to the HN frontpage.

<comment><USER6> Totally agreed. I also lost a little respect for Hipmunk when I found out they are basically an exact copy of ITA's app: <http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm>.

<comment><USER7> ITA's app doesn't seem nearly as useful to me for a few reasons:

1) The form at the beginning is much more confusing. Creating a search with Hipmunk is much less complicated. 2) Flights are ordered by price, whereas Hipmunk orders them by "agony", which in my experience, seems to be pretty accurate. 3) Doesn't default to time bar mode, like Hipmunk does.

<comment><USER6> True, but I'm not sure removing form fields and renaming filtering data constitutes innovation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great! What about also indicating if the plane has power plugins? Or is this becoming the standard these days?

If my laptop/iPad dies, knowing the internet is available goes from awesome to super painful.

<comment><USER9> For the iPad, this thing is awesome:

[http://www.amazon.com/New-Trent-iCruiser- IMP1000-Blackberry/...](http://www.amazon.com/New-Trent-iCruiser- IMP1000-Blackberry/dp/B003ZBZ64Q/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1309293138&sr=1-4)

I got one for a flight to Hong Kong. iPad ran constantly for >16 hours, and it was also handy for topping off an iPhone when batteries ran low. Well worth the cash if you travel for extended periods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think giving consumers the ability to view flight information other than price and schedule will encourage airlines to provide better services and features.

I'd love to quickly be able to compare the costs of checking luggage, cancellation insurance costs, etc.

<comment><USER11> Wishful thinking but _highly_ unlikely. The airline industry has shown to be very, very price sensitive and customers, although they complain about service, really are just looking for the cheapest flight.

I've always thought the downfall of the airline industry is our (consumers') own fault; we search by price and only seem to deviate from price as our main criteria on occasion in the name of loyalty plans.

<comment><USER12> There's a major difference between the behavior of leisure and business travelers. Leisure travelers have (historically) been price-sensitive in the extreme. Business travelers have been way more schedule- and airline- sensitive. This is why you see so many perks thrown at business travelers (free upgrades, etc.)—it's an attempt by the airlines to win the business of their most profitable clients.

As to whether airlines will be inspired to install more wi-fi, consider this: all the major US airlines that don't already have wi-fi on their entire fleet have announced plans to install it on a lot more of their fleet this year. They're hoping people—especially business travelers—will make their purchasing decisions on the basis of wi-fi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is fantastic news! If I am on another unproductive cross-country flight watching mindless iTunes rental movies on my iPad instead of working (or reading HN) I'm going to go crazy.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is fantastic! I'm planning a trip to Australia, with so many hours trapped, it would be fantastic to know there's wi-fi on board. +1!

<comment><USER15> Is Hipmunk's information on flights to Australia actually decent? I took a look at it a while back for Canada-Europe flights and the results were less than inspiring.

<comment><USER16> I don't think many (if any?) carriers are offering WiFi on trans-atlantic or trans-pacific flights

<comment><USER17> I'm pretty sure the current on-board WiFi tech uses cell towers for service, which rules out over-ocean access right now.

<comment><USER18> In cars maybe, but in flight? At 4.5km above the towers? Not a chance.

There are two main techs for on-board WiFi:

* Air-to-ground radiotelephony (what AirFone[0] used to use), which works like cell phones except for the sky, and with not cell towers and on a different frequency band. So not really like cell towers. This is the technology of Aircell's Gogo (which seems to be Hipmunk's partner on there) and LiveTV's. Advantage is that it's pretty cheap (~100k/plane of equipment), but it will only work over land (as it's based on ground antennas)

* Satellites, this is Row44's technology (via HughesNet), the tech is far more expensive to setup in planes but more flexible and works across oceans. As far as I know, Row44 is only being implemented by SouthWest and Norwegian Air Shuttle. Alaska Airlines tried it (and the trial was successful), but decided to go Aircell GoGo for cost reasons.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirFone>

<comment><USER17> I dispute your characterization of air-to-ground telephony as "not really like cell towers". Aircel (the guys behind Gogo Inflight) themselves characterize it as such on their own website[0]. I was, however, unaware of the satellite tech.

[0]<http://www.gogoinflight.com/gogo/cms/work.do>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is great. I looked for flights yesterday using hipmunk and the whole experience was just perfect. The hipmunk team deserves alot of respect

<comment><USER20> Hurray! Thanks, Max :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is this international or just for American flights?

</comment><comment><USER22> slightly off topic but I love the Hipmunk date control. You can type in your date in any format and it'll parse it. No need to make tons of click to navigate through a calendar control.

<comment><USER20> Thank you very much :) I was very impressed when I saw it - especially with how flexible dates are handled: [http://blog.hipmunk.com/post/6494292972/new- flexible-date-se...](http://blog.hipmunk.com/post/6494292972/new-flexible- date-searching-for-flights)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Blast! Just booked a bunch of trips last week - wish I had waited.

</comment><comment><USER24> We've had this in Australia for ages: None!</comment>


Show HN: Free Bootstrap 4 Login/Register Forms - <AUTHOR> https://wireddots.com/products/login-register-forms <comment><USER2> What is the point of this ^^?

</comment><comment><USER3> \- I see only one form

\- It's not good to begin with :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is registration form --> [https://wireddots.metalogicssoft.com/components/login- regist...](https://wireddots.metalogicssoft.com/components/login- register/register.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you decide which language to use for a project? - <AUTHOR>

For those of you who know several languages, what criteria do you use to determine which language suits which projects? Have you ever learned a language specifically for a project?<p>I will be starting a new project soon and have carte blanche in terms of language/architecture, etc, including something new. Are there certain flags that indicate one language or group of language over another? <comment><USER2> I think my method is inefficient but I start out trying hello world in a few languages and playing around with how easy to install and work with it is. I tried one project in SWT and decided it hurt my brain so I went to Swing. I tried RoR and realized I was way in over my head and went to GWT because I knew Java. So in essence, I choose the path of least resistance but am always willing to test drive a few paths. Chances are the code will be rewritten in 5 years anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't learn the syntax or function names in languages or libraries or frameworks, I read about what that it's particularly good (or bad) at and tuck that away in the back of my brain.

When I have a problem and I get to pick what I want to make it with, I consult all this information stored up in my head combined with a bit of research on google.

</comment><comment><USER4> I choose which language to use based on what the language is known for.

Example: I'd choose C for heavy lifting tasks, because it's fast and (can be) efficient. But in a personal project, which I do in my free time, I'd choose Node.js. Just because I like JS.

</comment><comment><USER5> Personally, I'd favor the language you're most comfortable with and has the best tools, frameworks, preexisting code, etc. for getting your project done. It's a trade off in both respects, but you can usually find a happy medium.

</comment><comment><USER6> Availability of libraries may be an issue. I recently decided to go with Python instead of Ruby for my side project because it has a great symbolic mathematics library named SymPy.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you know several languages well, the project's characteristics will usually make the language choice obvious.

I'd recommend against learning a new language for a new project.</comment>


XMPP and Jabber - <AUTHOR> http://simonholywell.com/post/2013/02/xmpp-and-jabber.html <comment><USER2> It's very ironic that XMPP which was invented as an open standard to combat the various proprietary IM networks only really got traction as part of new equally proprietary IM networks that go great lengths at making their XMPP implementations incompatible to any other XMPP implementation.

I'm looking at you, WhatsApp, iMessage and all others.

</comment><comment><USER3> What I've really wanted to figure out for awhile now is how XMPP might work as a replacement for email. Even as new IMAP or Gmail clients appear on the market seemingly every few months now, I can't shake the idea that it's time for a new protocol, alas an impossibly tall order. Yet XMPP seems like the closest thing to an existing, modern standard to build upon. Am I tilting at windmills, or is there any validity to this idea?

<comment><USER4> What, exactly, do you want to do with it, and how does it replace email?

(Genuinely curious - I see suggestions for replacing email on a regular basis, but rarely ones that are deeply thought out.)

<comment><USER3> There are some fairly general reasons, like XMPP being a much newer, extensible (it's in the name!), yet mature messaging protocol with a big community, but there are also some specific ones.

One of big potential benefits I see is the XMPP concept of contact requests. Simply separating new senders from existing senders at an architectural level seems like a great start for an email replacement, both in terms of user experience ("who I know" is fundamentally separate from "who I don't know" regardless of the client), and in network utilization (spam is only ever as long as a request header instead of an entire message).

<comment><USER5> XMPP is focused on real-time, synchronous communication. It does provision for async communication with server storage of offline messages, and even originally discriminated "chat" messages from "email"-type messages with multiple recipients and a subject. IIRC, this latter feature is deprecated as the protocol developers focused on real-time stuff.

Because in the end, and despite all its kludges, e-mail doesn't need replacement. Its biggest problem remains spam, and even that is under control by all the major providers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was expecting something a little more like this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3355453>

</comment><comment><USER7> For the Node.js developers in the discussion, I've been hacking away on [Junction](<https://github.com/jaredhanson/junction>) in my spare moments.

I've long been fascinated with XMPP, because it is so flexible. Rather than focusing solely on a specific purpose (like IM), Junction exposes a middleware framework similar to Express so that you can develop applications on top of XMPP.

I've been happy with the approach, and I'd be curious to get feedback from other developers who've had similar thoughts regarding XMPP.

<comment><AUTHOR> Junction looks like an interesting library for XMPP and Node.js.

It might also interest Node.js developers to know that this article was written as part of a tutorial on writing a Google Chat bot with Node.js. To see part one of the article please see the following Hacker News post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175913>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I never fully understood why everybody is using XMPP in walled gardens (e.g. Whatsapp, Facebook, Messages...). Do you think they get anything from that? Is any of those services monetized successfully?

<comment><USER9> Seemly Whatsapp is, and what they are doing is genius, I would pay even more for the service than what they are charging (99 cents year).

At first I did not understood, what it had in special, until I figured that it was the fact that it used your phone contact list, thus taking out the boring task of managing that, and making adding people to your list easy as finding someone phone number.

Yet, I would not use it as my primary messenger (neither Facebook), because of how they are tied to something in particular (phones, Facebook) and thus allow less flexibility in where or how I use them.

<comment><USER10> Why would you pay for such service if one can get a normal secure and federated XMPP service for free? Whatsapp offers no advantages of XMPP (no interoperability and no federation) and only adds problems (flawed security). Paying money for such kind of disservice is simply strange.

<comment><USER11> Adoption. That is one of the main reasons why most people won't mind paying for whatsapp ; almost everyone on their contacts list already uses the app and frankly most people don't know or care much about whatsapp's security measures.

<comment><USER10> None of my contacts use it, so I can't say anything about adoption. But if someone needs to use an IM network - there are good XMPP services. Simply invite your friends to any federated XMPP server and you have an interoperable way to communicate with them.

<comment><USER12> "Simply invite your friends to any federated XMPP server..."

I can't even get my friends to click invitation links to pre-baked apps.

<comment><USER10> Explain to them what's bad about walled IM networks (it's like not being able to send e-mails between AOL and Compuserve back in the day) and explain what is the point in the federated XMPP networks. Then explain why Whatsapp security is totally broken. If people won't care after that - just leave them alone. :) Most people understand, but claim they are too tied in the existing walled networks. Some don't mind registering on some XMPP server in addition, so you can get a range of results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is it me or doest this read like it's half an article? I got through to the end expecting it to be about something that you can do with XMPP and Jabber, rather than a rather basic primer on Jabber and XMPP themselves.

I don't have a problem with it, although it would've been nice if the title had made it clear that it was a primer.

<comment><AUTHOR> The article was originally written as separate article to appear alongside the main article I wrote for .net Magazine.

The main article is about creating a Google Talk bot with Node.js so if you want to create something with XMPP then please have a read through of that article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175913>

Also when I submitted this article to Hacker News I entitled it "A short history of XMPP and Jabber" so I am not sure how or when it got renamed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would like to point the fact that Microsoft is killing live messenger, so the article is kinda outdated on something :)

Also, I wonder what networks can access the original Jabber network beside G-Talk, anyone here has a clue on that?

I really like G-Talk, and I wish it could interoperate with other interesting IM software.

<comment><USER14> Seriously though I could not even imagine my workday without GTalk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Google and XMPP have recently added a draft extension to the protocol called Jingle, which enables voice over IP and video conferencing."

The use of 'recently' made me do a bit of double take.

[http://slashdot.org/story/05/12/16/070245/google-jabber- and-...](http://slashdot.org/story/05/12/16/070245/google-jabber-and-jingle)

<comment><AUTHOR> The feature is still draft and only made version 1 in June 2009 (<http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0166.html>). I don't actually track changes in XMPP so I am open to correction on this point.

Around the time I actually wrote the article (many months before it was originally published in .net magazine) there had just been a libjingle release and I was told at the time it was a new thing to have this available to 3rd party developers.

<comment><USER16> libjingle has been around for years; Wikipedia says December 2005.

(It doesn't matter, but I also raised an eyebrow and started looking for the date on the blog entry when I read that sentence.)

<comment><USER17> Also, GTalk does not use libjingle but its own slightly-different pre-standard implementation, that's why it is impossible to talk to GTalk users with a XMPP client that supports Jingle via libjingle.

This is quite a mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm implementing a Google Talk jabber client and I'm curious whether or not it allows sending messages as links. It doesn't seem to automatically parse them into clickable ones. Not much luck on the XML alteration....

<comment><USER19> You can send the body in HTML as well as in plaintext, so you can craft the links in the HTML part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I vaguely remember one of the authors of XMPP invented an alternative protocol which is simpler, perhaps based on JSON, anyone remember?

Using XML these days seems too heavy weight.

<comment><USER16> XMPP's XML overhead isn't as large as you might think; it compresses well, and streaming XML parsers can be pretty fast.

XML's extensibility is one of the reasons that XMPP has so many XEPs. A JSON- based protocol would need a central registry or some kind of namespaces to achieve the same thing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best use of a scatterplot you have ever seen? - <AUTHOR> I am preparing a paper for school about scatterplots. Their benefits and use cases. Would be cool to have some examples of especially great ones. <comment><USER2> [http://datavis.ca/papers/friendly- scat.pdf](http://datavis.ca/papers/friendly-scat.pdf) has a section _"remarkable scatterplots in the history of science"_

That section mentions the Hertzprung-Russell diagram as a fine example.

</comment><comment><USER3> Showing my boss 1 week ago the median salary wage for all employees of a specific job title ... :D

<comment><AUTHOR> What happened?</comment></comment>


What are the most popular web apps according to Friend Feed usage? - <AUTHOR> http://internetducttape.com/2008/03/26/most-popular-web-apps-by-friendfeed/

<comment><USER2> Does showing up the most on FriendFeed mean "winning"?

I use Pandora even more than I use Twitter -- I have it open all day long on many days. But I have a few stations I'm pretty happy with, and I don't update it much anymore, so it barely registers on my FriendFeed.

Trick question: does the fact that Digg registers more comments than Reddit mean it's better?</comment>


Larry Lessig sings tribute to Aaron Swartz - <AUTHOR> http://rapgenius.com/Lawrence-lessig-we-walk-lyrics

<comment><USER2> Rap Genius back to their old 'growth hacking' ways I see. This time exploiting the memory of a dead person for links and page views.</comment>


Ordered Graph Data Language - <AUTHOR> http://ogdl.org/ <comment><USER2> Where are the graphes ? I only see trees...

<comment><AUTHOR> A tree is a type of graph. OGDL represents graphs because OGDL documents can have cyclic references.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Visualisation is usually more interesting.</comment>


The Ultra-Simple App That Lets Anyone Encrypt Anything - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/07/minilock-simple-encryption/

<comment><USER2> It's a really neat idea, though I'm not a big fan of having it as a browser extension.

Two observations:

1\. Password strength is really, really important now, since it is deterministically transformed into your key pair. It's not like the passphrase for a GnuPG key where you'd have to steal the private key in the first place, in order to do something evil with the recovered weak passphrase.

2\. There's another big caveat re: password. In most systems that we know it doesn't matter if you have a non-unique password, as long as it's not guessable. In this scheme your identity will be merged with everyone else who has thought of the same password.

</comment><comment><USER3> A public-private key that is derived the same way from a passphrase is not public key encryption. It is effectively a symmetric key: shared secret.

There are simple symmetric key programs for file encryption with symmetric keys, like AESCrypt, which integrates into the Explorer shell on Windows.

<comment><USER4> Another advantage of using a passphrase-generated keypair is that encrypting files doesn't require a passphrase.

For example, it would be possible to implement a backup service that automatically performs backups in the background, and only asks for the passphrase in the event of a restore.</comment></comment>


Improving your skills as a 9 to 5 programmer - <AUTHOR> http://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/15/40-hour-programmer/ <comment><USER2> Honestly, 1 hour a week is not enough. I do 1 hour every morning and have benefitted tremendously from it.

Before you scoff that I must not have enough work, note that I've developed and built several large web applications for my fortune 500 company all on my own, I've been busy.

You can make 1 hour a day work simply by just working it out so that you're not pulled into meetings constantly. If at work, you can manage to be on 1 or 2 projects only, and each has defined meeting times (like standups or weekly progress reports), then you can budget your time to code. At my job, we assume 6 hours of coding per day, 2 for meetings. I make that 5 hours of coding per day, and 1 for learning. No one notices, and if they did no one would care because the 1 hour I take every morning to explore gets me in a great place to spend the rest of the day being really productive.

The benefits have been tremendous, my code is of higher quality. I'm becoming a technical leader to my team. I've done the most presentations on new technology and I've gotten to architect our apps more. All because I work less at work, and explore more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely more than an hour a week is better. But less experienced programmers need some practice in focusing and efficiency, which is why I suggested starting smaller. Once one has more focus it's easier to have more time to learn, and then you get a nice feedback loop going like you did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think it would be fair to say that most of us can accommodate much more than an hour per week at work. Perhaps an hour per day or more.

</comment><comment><USER4> An hour a week? This is the wishful thinking of someone with precluding commitments.</comment>


Passwords at NS&I (still, 2015) stored in plaintext (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://avaragado.org/2013/07/06/tumbling-through-nsi-hoops/ <comment><AUTHOR> They are still trying to justify with "we took independent advice on the password format and it was recommended to use between 6-8 characters" (Aug 2015)

[https://twitter.com/nsandihelp/status/632290575962738688](https://twitter.com/nsandihelp/status/632290575962738688)</comment>


So an iPhone, an Android and a Windows Phone 7 Are Put on a Grill [video] - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/11/12/phone-grill/ <comment><USER2> So the iPhone is the only one to warn the user, but did it shut itself off or malfunction?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it shut itself off.</comment></comment>


How one hacker quit the programming life for bluer skies - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/06/frank-duff/

<comment><USER2> I have to say, having been both a bike messenger and programmer for several years each, that there are some very alluring aspects to the bike messenger lifestyle. It's serene and meditative, you work outdoors, it's really energizing. The fact that it rarely pays more than $300/wk (unless it's snowing) makes it a less viable option for people trying to make a good life for a family. That part's not really mentioned in the articles glamorizing the lifestyle.

Being a programmer can often seem like the opposite of that, when you're in the office on Saturday writing PHP form validation logic for the 500th time for an arbitrary deadline.

I used to say being a bike messenger was my favorite job I ever had, until I saved up a little money and started working on a startup a few months ago. Building my startup's product and market is much more energizing, freeing, and rewarding than being a bike messenger ever was. I can't wait to get up in the morning and start programming (assuming that's on the agenda for the day).

Plus now I can ride my bike around NYC during the work day, without having to hang out in corporate mail rooms 40% of the time.

<comment><USER3> "The fact that it rarely pays more than $300/wk (unless it's snowing) makes it a less viable option for people trying to make a good life for a family. That part's not really mentioned in the articles glamorizing the lifestyle."

Here's a bit that was cut from the article, originally right after the part where I write that Duff gave couriering one last shot after moving back to Toronto:

"It was humbling," Duff says. "I only lasted four months before I decided it wasn't worth it." When he was 22, if Duff had a bad day and only brought home $70, it was OK. He shared a house with three roommates and had cheap rent and few expenses. But now if he makes only $70 in day, it's barely enough to cover child care.

"I wouldn't recommend anyone who has a family consider leaving their white collar job for couriering," Duff says. "But I think it's a very reasonable decision if you hate your job and you're in your 20s and you're single and have relatively few expenses."

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... When a friend offered him a job as a bike messenger, he took it — in part because couriers had been glamorized in cyberpunk novels like William Gibson's Virtual Light and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, but also because it would ease his mind ..."_

Great read Klint. This is the best quote from the article and I really understand this. I remember having the best of both, working outdoors during University - some money and hard physical work. Undo-able now. Of the bike riders I see on the weekend, a fair portion I imagine are city-boys working in high-stress cerebral occupations like software & finance ~ <http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/5646201528/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the mental grind of being a programmer can be exhausting. Especially if you work in 95% of work environments/companies. Either you're working with people who aren't passionate, or you're working on boring software. The fact it's very much a sedentary activity doesn't help too, as it saps our energy.

After doing it for awhile, you can't help but ask "What's the point of all this? Who cares? Who cares if we're producing wealth? I rather downsize, live in a cave and go back to the simple life! This mental grind for that fancy car and a new flat screen TV isn't worth it!"

<comment><USER5> _I think the mental grind of being a programmer can be exhausting. Especially if you work in 95% of work environments/companies. Either you're working with people who aren't passionate, or you're working on boring software. The fact it's very much a sedentary activity doesn't help too, as it saps our energy._

I find uncertainty and confusion and then finding a solution to the problem, to be exhausting itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here I was all psyched up for a story about a pilot.

"Bluer skies"? He's a pilot!

Picture starts loading. He looks just like Cid Highwind. He's an awesome pilot with a sense of humor!

I see "bike messenger." _The dreeeeeeam of the nineties is aliiiiiiive in Portland..._ I am disappoint.

</comment><comment><USER7> He quit his programming _job_ , not programming.

I code (not very well), but I don't get paid for it. I'm an electrical engineer by day and enjoy writing code as a hobby. I doubt I would ever want to wade into a software development gig. I still like making computers submit to my bidding, however.

</comment><comment><USER8> The leading sentence "Some people believe that everyone should be a programmer." is crazy.

I want everyone to learn how to code, but not to be a programmer.

Just like I want everyone to learn math, but not to be a mathematician. There's a difference, and it's important.

The whole leading paragraph implies that if some people are happier not doing something for a living, then everyone should beware learning it at all.

</comment><comment><USER5> I remember working 8 hours a day and then coming home and not doing anything interesting. I just want to play and enjoy myself, and then go to sleep. I never really got used to programming for a living.

<comment><USER9> What do you do now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now if the guy would have quit programming to become a lumberjack, that would have been interesting. Instead it sounds almost like an Onion parody of hipsters.

<comment><USER11> I go cut down cedar trees (for any of you tree huggers, they are non-native & invasive - they suck up a ton of water that our pretty oak trees need) on my family's Texas hill country ranch a couple times a year... It is my go to relaxation time.

Now, would I quit being a developer to cut down trees full time? No, I like web development & my chainsawing skills won't pay the bills...

<comment><USER12> Cedar (Ashe Juniper) is not an invasive species in central Texas. Some people are extremely allergic to the pollen though, so that's usually why they want to cut them down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I didn't want to go into programming after I got my CS degree mostly due to the terrible job market where I lived in 2000 after the dot-com crash.

I had a year where I traveled and had jobs like handing out fliers, picking pears, and pruning vines. Then I moved to the US, spent six months living on a sofa while working as a mechanic, then as a part-time computer repair guy.

It's liberating working blue-collar jobs because you really don't have to care, and certainly don't think about the job out-of-hours. I learnt that there were two kinds of jobs--those that you shower before work and those you shower after.

The real lesson was that you really can't have a decent living on minimum wage. I ended up calling every local web design firm in the Yahoo! Directory and begging for a job. I feel privileged that a decade late I'm earning nearly eight times minimum wage and that I can enjoy the trappings that come with that.

</comment><comment><USER14> It sounds like he just didn't like his programming job. I quit a decent paying full time job in 2010. A bunch of my friends thought I was crazy at the time. I left my office, I worked in a coffeeshop for a while, did some freelancing and figured out what sort of job and work environment would make me happier. There are a galaxy of programming jobs, this story doesn't strike me as being actually about programming, just about a guy who was unhappy with one job and did something very different for a while to feel better about it (which can be a great idea for some people!).

</comment><comment><USER15> "The pay was decent, and he was doing good for the world, but he realized that programming just wasn't his calling."

An he self-identifies as a hacker? By definition, if you are a hacker, it IS your calling. No story here.

Clearly, he is a writer by calling (self-identified in the article) who learned to program and uses it to pay the bill from time to time; an occasionally writes a code riff for fun... but that doesn't make him a hacker.

<comment><USER16> Hacker != Programmer

Being a hacker to me just means someone with an "engineering" mindset. Someone who can make solutions out of whatever's available. It's the innovative and clever mindset that most programmers share, but there's no rule that you have to be a programmer or work in IT.

You'll find people with these traits working in medicine, construction, agriculture, and any number of different professions. We wouldn't have advancement in lots of areas if everyone that was a "hacker" only became programmers.

<comment><USER17> It's entirely reasonable to imagine a hypothetical "programmer hacker" who chooses something other than programming as a career anyway. One could spend their time hacking on open source projects or hobby projects or whatever, while making a living doing $WHATEVER. But they'd still be a hacker.

<comment><USER18> As soon as I hit the 30s and have a family, I intend to move to teaching as a career. I've been programming since i was 12 and have always had side projects, and I don't think that will ever stop- but I have a hard time imagining myself writing code for arbitrary projects and deadlines my whole life.

Right now though, I'm young, it pays really well (and I save a lot of money for later) and I enjoy the lifestyle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why does this guy deserve a Wired story? He's not interesting. What next, a story about stock brokers who start a restaurant?

<comment><USER19> I suppose Wired covered this because the general sentiment these days is that everyone needs to learn programming since it is pretty much the only way to be productive in the future.

<comment><USER20> Bingo. He's a slightly personable foil to the new rhetoric.

<comment><USER21> I enjoy stories counter to the current cultural sentiment, however I found this one to be very bland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Quote from the article:

"He gave the bike messenger gig one more shot, but that only lasted for a month or so. _It's not career, but neither was programming_ , and being a courier helped him realized that. "I really shudder to think what I'd be doing now, if I had stayed with programming for the last seven years," he says."

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Everyone should be a programmer, but not in the eight-year-in-cubicle-daily sense. So it's not even mutually exclusive.

<comment> guard-of-terra s/year/hour/

<comment><USER23> I dunno, sometimes it feels like I spend 8 years a day in my cubicle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The mistake in this (and in similar articles) is conflating activity and purpose. Programming is an activity, not an end in itself. To love programming is to love solving challenging problems with a computer, not the act of typing code for 9 hours a day.

That is why articles like these just end up being psychological mirrors - those who aren't being fulfilled in a programming job will always perk up at the idea of "bluer skies". Job unhappiness almost always has a root cause that has little to do with the activity of the job itself, and more with the job situation.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hmm. Yeah making $300 per week sounds really great. Not. Silly article.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm a professional programmer who feels like he maybe shouldn't be. Articles like these are encouraging, even if never wind up quitting.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why is this presented as a either-or dichotomy, between programming and "blue skies"? If you want to do just physical labor, OK, then I guess you don't really need to program. However, if he decides to eventually start his own messenger service, I imagine knowing how to program, even if for the equivalent of 0.5 days a week in order to custom-build the kind of logistics tool needed to break into the messenger-service market, will _help_ him achieve this kind of bluer-skies lifestyle.

He's not giving up programming for bluer-skies. He's giving up a complex- life...but that entails many other fields of knowledge besides programming.

<comment><USER28> Because short attention spa

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I stopped reading at

 _Though some say that Duff was never a "real coder" if he was willing to give up the life_

Dribble.

</comment><comment><USER30> Take away: do what makes you happy.</comment>


Dodgeball dead. - <AUTHOR> http://www.valleywag.com/tech/dodgeball/aaaaand-its-dead-255399.php <comment><USER2> False alarm. Works for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Still works here, I checked the link when I read it on valley wag :D</comment>