Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/16/17357592/net-neutrality-senate-vote-cra-reinstate-fcc-rules <comment><USER3> This seems like the way that this should be addressed. The case against Net Neutrality was made almost strictly as a case of regulatory overreach and overly burdensome regulations that inherited irrelevant restrictions and unenforceable provisions designed for specific telecom use cases that don't apply to ISPs.

The first issue is clearly addressed by a legislative approach -- it stops being regulatory overreach when the regulators are mandated to enforce. The second issue depends on how this bill is worded, but in theory it gives an opportunity to create more specialized regulations that directly address the issue at hand without bringing on board historical cruft that applies to a different problem domain.

EDIT: after actually reading the article and the actual resolution [1], I see that the second point is unaddressed; this just directly reverses the ruling. Even the first point is barely addressed because it doesn't expand the mandate; it just asserts that the mandate means something that it arguably does not mean.

[1] [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint- re...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint- resolution/52/text/is?format=txt)

<comment><USER4> I feel like the root problem is lack of competition at the ISP level. If we had that, net neutrality regulation would likely not be necessary. Instead we're trying to fix a bad regulatory environment with even more regulations.

<comment><USER5> The market conditions are set up for what is called a "natural monopoly". Its inefficient for new companies to build wires to an already wired up neighborhood.

Companies therefore become de-facto monopolies on a neighborhood-by- neighborhood basis. The exception are cities where a dense population of people can support additional carriers for sake of competition. But at a basic level, the economic conditions just make the ISP problem complicated.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment>---

Frankly speaking, all options to deal with natural monopolies kinda suck. Socialism simply has the government take over for example, so the legal monopoly is at least owned by the people.

Capitalism can't solve the problem. Its more efficient for companies to wire up other neighborhoods. Why become a competitor when you can simply become a monopoly holder somewhere else?

An interesting blend of capitalism / socialism is to have the wires owned by the municipality, or perhaps a highly-regulated entity (such as a utility company). The law is then rewritten to state: "It is illegal to be both a physical-wire company AND an ISP at the same time", or something to that effect.

Physical wire companies are then forced to rent out their wires to different ISPs. For example, if Verizon owned the wires of an area, they'd be forced to reorganize and split-off the wire-owning portion into a "Verizon Local utility coporporation".

Then, "Verizon Local Utility Inc." (now an independent company) will sell the time on the wires to various ISPs, like Verizon or Comcast.

ISPs will still be responsible for interfacing with the population, as well as bandwidth, routers, and other such details on the data-center side. The local- utility company will be responsible for physical maintenance of the wires, with a strict regulation regime to ensure that they provide equal-opportunity access to large ISPs, as well as any startups who wish to enter the space.

Its certainly "more regulations" towards this problem. But I've never heard of a more complete solution than this kind of scheme. Its not necessarily "Socialism" either, because the US has a long-record of tightly regulating local Utility companies, due to similar economic issues (the concept of local power companies being a natural monopoly. The "deregulation" schemes that exist today to allow local residents to buy solar energy or nuclear energy, delivered by local wires under a tight regulation / utility regulation scheme)

So its American, its a familiar model to many municipalities, and it works in practice. As demonstrated by power-companies and phone companies of ages past... as well as a few European countries who have adopted this scheme.

\</comment><comment>----

Under such a regime, "Net Neutrality" can become an ISP's defining trait. And we can let the market decide if its worth the cost. If people want a "Net Neutral ISP", they simply pay for the competitors who offer such a service. So the overall regulatory burden is lowered, IMO.

<comment><USER6> > as well as a few European countries who have adopted this scheme.

Do you have examples of which countries that have implemented something similar? I recall reading about this in the past, and I would like to read more about it, but I can't think off the top of my head which countries I might have read about.

<comment><USER7> afaik it's how power distribution works in australia? i think there are energy "retailers" and energy "wholesalers", and you legally aren't allowed to be both. wholesalers cover plants and wires, and retailers handle billing and connection.

thats not a glowing recommendation of he system though because our electrical network is all kinds of expensive :p (but that could be for other reasons; i'm no expert on it)

<comment><USER8> _thats not a glowing recommendation of he system though because our electrical network is all kinds of expensive_

Yes. The distribution monopolies are only allowed to make a fair rate of return on their operating and capital expenses, as determined by the independent regulator (this is to prevent them from raising their prices to the point that they capture all the economic surplus, as they otherwise would). Unfortunately this has incentivised over-investment in the distribution networks (the more they spend, the more profit they're allowed to make) - referred to as "gold-plating" \- which ends up being passed on in the prices faced by consumers.

Specific to the ISP issue, this is how the NBN works in Australia too - <USER2> NBN provides the underlying network, but isn't a retail ISP itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's interesting the way that the Congressional Review Act operates, to require both houses and the president to sign off on overruling the decision of an executive agency.

In bicameral Westminster-style systems, delegated legislation (ie. executive regulations) can usually be vetoed by _either_ chamber. This being under the principle that if the regulation in question had been enacted as regular legislation it would have required the approval of both chambers to pass.

<comment><USER9> It's a fiction either way. There's no way to decide whether the vetoed action was in or out of scope of the original delegated authority. Maybe one chamber just changed their mind.

<comment><USER8> Well, no - the idea is that the delegated authority is simply _" you may make regulations without prior approval of the legislature for the sake of expediency, but it is subject to veto so you can't use it as an end-run around the legislature"_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am on the one hand happy to hear about this, but I couldn't help but laugh at the way it was reported on NPR. They said Democrats see this as an issue that can bring voters to the polls. I immediately thought of how few people even know what the heck net neutrality is (about 1 in 4 [0]). Either NPR is making stuff up or the Democrats are seriously in need of some new advice. [0]:[https://americanactionnetwork.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/02...](https://americanactionnetwork.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/02..).

<comment><USER11> 1 in 4? That is insanely high. I would be surprised in 1 in 10 can explain what NN is properly (not "evil ISPs are gonna to make us pay for pr0n!") and about 1 in a 100 to explain what actually happened in 2015 and what happened in 2018 and what is the state of current legislation around ISP-content provider relationships. These things are complex patchwork of years of legislation and require non-trivial knowledge to understand. I rate the chance of 1 in 4 of Americans having this knowledge as the chance 1 in 4 Americans can fluently speak ancient Sumerian.

<comment><USER12> They don't need to understand in order to vote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Isn't this how things are supposed to be done anyway? I imagine I will have to keep waiting for Congress to re-assert their authority over making war.

</comment><comment><USER14> Again, this is meaningless. Currently the future of net neutrality is the decision of the courts, and if this miraculously passes the house and president, the future remains in the hands of the courts.

A new law is necessary to guarantee net neutrality. This has been known for over twelve years, both Clinton and Obama cosponsored a bill on it in 2006, but so far neither party has made any serious move towards passing a bill.

</comment><comment><USER15> My rep has already sent me a firm, automated "fuck you" but I've sent him an email anyway.

<comment><USER16> Your email went into the junk folder. Send a letter and phone call.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Considering where this has been politically, this isn't going to change anything. And really all "killing" NN does is move this back to the FTC, where it was for a decade+

<comment><USER18> Internet is a utility now though and only the FCC can make network / internet a utility / common carrier.

ISPs want it at the FTC for that reason, so it isn't seen as a utility, it is.

Internet is as required as radio, phone, tv, water, electricity etc, it makes more sense under Title II and 80%+ of people support that. [1]

> _Americans embrace a Title II vision of internet service. A strong majority > (88 percent, 48 percent strongly) agree that "when I buy internet service, I > am paying to transmit information between my computer and the websites I > visit, free from interference." This finding demonstrates that the public > views internet access as a Title II telecommunications service, similar to > phone service. Americans recognize the vital role the internet plays, with > 83 percent agreeing that the "internet is essential infrastructure, like > roads and bridges."_

[1] [https://www.scribd.com/document/353285485/Freedman- Consultin...](https://www.scribd.com/document/353285485/Freedman-Consulting- Net-Neutrality-Poll)

<comment><USER19> This kind of polling really bothers me.

> when I buy internet service, I am paying to transmit information between my > computer and the websites I visit, free from interference.

Of course they'll agree with that. Now ask them if they think their VoIP landline phone calls should be required to be treated with equal priority to their neighbor's cat videos or bittorrent traffic. Ask them if their provider should be able to regulate disruptive / chatty protocols used by a tiny minority to improve the quality of the service for everyone else. Ask them if it bothers them to have their Netflix traffic be zero-rated as a bundled-in perk from their ISP.

You'll then find the number much lower than 80% in "support." It's difficult to imagine a more leading question.

<comment><USER20> You have to dumb your questions down to terms "everybody" can understand, or else they won't know what the question is. The first question most people will understand.

<comment><USER19> If it has to be dumbed down and leading that much, the result of the survey is meaningless.

<comment><USER20> Just the opposite: If you ask questions they can't understand, _then_ the survey is meaningless. You always have to make sure the respondents understand the question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The root issue is entrenched (literally and figuratively) local monopolies. We _want_ Net Neutrality because we can't switch providers when our ISPs behave badly.

I think if they go after that issue think manner they will get the votes. However, I see them going after the regulatory route, which unlikely to be pass.

<comment><USER22> They do all they can to pretend that there is "competition". It's the only way they can ignore the obvious, that opponents of Net Neutrality are simply proponents of monopolies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am surprised this even passed the Senate. It is almost as if Senators want to get re-elected.

<comment><USER9> The Senate has 51 Republicans but 3 of them are rather independent/centrist and sometimes vote with Democrats.

<comment><USER23> A lot of Republicans support Net Neutrality, including the stalwart conservative Scalia. The main reason so many current Republicans oppose it, is the association with Obama, and the piles of money Telecom is floating their way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am not in favor of government enforcement of net neutrality under libertarian/free market grounds, however, that being said, I am really happy about this vote on a ideological/philosophical level because one of my problems with government regulation is that it is often unaccountable — it's via executive/administrative or quasi-government entities that aren't directly accountable to voters. The Congressional Review Act (proposed and passed as part of the Republican Contract with America) is an exceptionally important law because it allows the public, through their representatives, to essentially override bad regulation (bad, as determined by voters.)

So while the outcome of this particular vote isn't one With which I agree, I wholeheartedly agree and endorse the vote itself. My big problem with government and regulation in general is that I feel that regulations lag or exceed the will of the public and there is little recourse when those rules are made by officials removed from the direct accountability from the voter.

I could be wrong on Net Neutrality, but if it passes or is defeated, at least the process of our actual representatives voting on such an important issue is happening. Such consequential decisions ought not be at the whims of bureaucrats. Bureaucracts should implement the law, they shouldn't be making it.

</comment><comment><USER25> A lot of people are dismissing this as political theatre, but it serves a useful function as recording the names of everyone against reinstating net neutrality publically, so that challengers can make it a campaign issue in November. No, it probably isn't going to pass the house, and smart money is on Trump vetoing it even if that miracle came to pass. However, Democrats are testing the waters for a campaign pledge, and some Republicans might notice. We absolutely want this represented in the midterm campaigns.

<comment><USER9> It's essentially a party line vote, so no recording is needed.

<comment><USER25> The record is important, because unlike party / representative positions, it won't change in the midterms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Time to call your Congressmen. I live in a purple district, and I'm going to make it clear to my Republican representative that:

1) I'm going to vote in November,

2) I will vote for him if he votes to keep the pre-existing title II net neutrality regulations, and against them if he does not, and

3) Net neutrality is even supported by a majority of Republican voters [1], so if he votes against it's clear he's voting against his constituents.

[1] [http://www.publicconsultation.org/united- states/overwhelming...](http://www.publicconsultation.org/united- states/overwhelming-bipartisan-majority-opposes-repealing-net-neutrality/)

<comment><USER27> For everyone's amusement, can you let us know what he says?

When I lived in Texas, the responses I got from my representatives were comically evil. Straight up bond villain.

<comment><USER28> That sounds exactly like what I got from Cathy mcmorris Rodgers in eastern Washington as well

<comment><USER29> I wonder if there's a "Letter's from my Congressman" website where random people post letters they got from their congressman.

<comment><USER30> Time to make it happen

<comment><USER31> We're on Hacker "I could make Airbnb in a weekend" News. Why doesn't it exist yet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My Comcast bill, over the course of two consecutive months since the beginning of this year -- and since the apparent, "inevitable" coming end of net neutrality, increased about 25%.

My Congressmen are going to hear about this. About how, for the better part of 20 years, Ameritech/SBC/ATT refused to upgrade my neighborhood trunk line, that doesn't even support DSL. In a high-density suburban neighborhood in the home/headquarters state of the corporation.

About how Ameritech/SBC (now rebranded ATT) received the better part of three quarters of a billion dollars in tax breaks and other incentives from the State of Illinois, in return for a commitment to provide "universal" (minimum 95% coverage) broadband access throughout the State. Whereupon, they immediately turned around and lobbied the State legislature to let them out of their side of the agreement, that commitment, while keeping the tax breaks and incentives.

They're going to hear how, several years ago, I couldn't watch Netflix streaming without constant interruptions, particularly during prime viewing hours, because Comcast refused to peer with Netflix in their datacenters -- at _Netflix 's_ expense and providing of the necessary equipment and installation. That problem didn't resolve until the bad publicity and outcry was giving Comcast (and its ilk exercising similar manipulation) an enormous PR black eye.

This right at the time Comcast was attempting to launch and gain traction with one of their "competing" streaming video offers.

About paid advocacy promoting lies about support for their actions within non- profit centric communities, such as... was it the NAACP, or another organization, that was supporting Comcast quite apparently in return for contributions.

How Congressmen supporting these telcos' agenda are functioning as paid shills for these private companies. Not just lobbied. Outright bought, with no effort or success in actually understanding the issues involved.

And I don't vote for paid shills.

\--

P.S. My State Democratic representative made the rounds, a couple of years ago after some heavy local storm damage. I took the opportunity to tell him about our local problem with ATT. (This was after the storm aftermath's crisis period was passed; he wasn't overloaded with it.)

He told me that actually, he had a meeting with ATT executives the following day and would bring it up. And that he'd get back to me on that.

I never heard a word. And when I followed up later with his staff, I still didn't hear anything.

I don't vote for him, any more. I faced that decision again, this past April. And no, still no vote for him.

<comment><USER33> State reps seem much more willing to help out/listen to their constituents. Every time I've reached out with a state representative they have helped me out. One even drafted a bill and politely told the city to f __* off

<comment><USER32> He sounded very interested during our conversation.

But, ATT is a _very_ big big-money and political player in our state. Even if he wasn't originally dissembling, the ATT executives may have just shut him right down.

Part of my point: I don't care which political party it is. If a member is in bed with this crap -- or even just silently acquiescing, to hell with them.

I'd liked this rep, up to that point. If he'd told me there was nothing he could do, or hadn't specifically told me he'd follow up. Maybe I'd grant a bit more benefit of the doubt. Well, I'd still expect him to address the issue -- take a position against the behavior.

Instead, silence. Like the silence amongst our supposed "mainstream" politicians in response to the hard right pushing beliefs and policy with no backing in fact. (Or the hard left, when they do that -- although then I can usually at least sympathize with the compassion, when present.)

Democrats need to understand that their weak tea "centrist", big business trend no longer sells to the base they need and that needs effective representation.

I'm all for effective business. I'm not for monopolies and oligopolies hindering progress for their own relative advantage. Nor sucking at the teat of public money and policy while complaining about their taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can we not frontpage things that suggest happenings that aren't? As noted in the article itself, the House is not going to vote this way, and this is a largely pointless political drama thing. The headline is _technically_ true, but has no meaningful effect whatsoever.

<comment><USER26> > the House is not going to vote this way

Unless you have a working crystal ball, that's a prediction, _not a fact_.

> and this is a largely pointless political drama thing

Not true. The repeal of net neutrality is extraordinarily unpopular (including among Republicans) and _all_ of the House is up for re-election this year. The Republicans may lose their majority.

In my opinion, this has a better shot of getting through than most. That is, if you don't prematurely give up hope.

<comment><USER35> The Republican Party is not only against regulations in general but they have explicitly come out against Net Neutrality rules. They (House Republicans) even made it part of their demands before the 2013 federal government shutdown: [https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/revealed-house-gops- de...](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/revealed-house-gops-debt-ceiling- plan-jonathan-strong/)

<comment><USER36> > They (House Republicans) even made it part of their demands before the 2013 > federal government shutdown

Not the same people that are there now, and not the same political circumstances. It is unlikely _but not impossible_ this will pass the House.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Whether this passes now or not is immaterial. Net neutrality is guaranteed to come back in the next administration, which will have as its primary agenda undoing all of Trump's damage. The question the big ISPs need to ask themselves is whether it makes any business sense to try to capitalize on this for a short time, knowing that they'll have to spend money to undo it all later.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's a victory for Democrats today, but this'll die in the House. Still it will make for good campaign material for the Democrats in the coming midterms.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is political noise, so some representatives can say "I voted for Net Neutrality."

<comment><USER40> Senators, you mean, and from the party not in power so that voters _know_ their stance and the stance of the in-power party.</comment></comment>


Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative - <AUTHOR> https://radvac.org/ <comment><USER2> Would be so cool if this worked. Paging the Gates Foundation to run a clinical trial.</comment>


I hate the term "open source" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nayafia/i-hate-the-term-open-source-a65fd481a95#.xotkb24z6 <comment><USER2> The symbol formerly known as free software. Where was it again on the keyboard?

Open Source is the set of all software that is freely distributed and who is source code is delivered in readable form. And yes, there are subsets.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ok article, untill the end when it suggests using the alternative term public software, which seems even more vague and meaningless. Any public freeware or adware software like facebook sounds like public software.

<comment><USER4> That's because the "new open source" _is_ broader in definition.

That's what the whole article is about.

And at least she is pitching in with the collaborative brain storming.</comment></comment>


Finding the problem is the hard part - <AUTHOR> http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2738

<comment><USER2> They got 1 billion not for solving the right problem or for solving a hard problem, they just sold it at the right time to the right customer in the biggest dot com bubble since 2000 and I don't think this requires too much talent, only lots of good luck.

There is too much focus on building some hype and find a good exit fast, this is bad, we need startups that solve problems, adds value to society, we need to get rid of the financial speculation and the bubble.

<comment><USER3> Isn't it sad that building products that add real value into people's lives is turning into a novel idea? Stop building "clever products", build useful ones that people will love. Money comes later, imo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think a bigger takeaway was their statement: be bold to adopt simple solutions. A lot of problems take too long to reach the market because people think their solution is too simple, and might be ridiculed by intellectuals.

</comment><comment><USER5> Somebody needs to create a startup to find problems for startups :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> Finding the problem which can be solved is the hard part..

<comment><USER7> That is right. I picked the most obvious problem, spam, and searched for a solution. I found one. That was all the easy part.</comment></comment>


How Everyone Got the Top 1% Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/how-you-i-and-everyone-got-the-top-1-percent-all-wrong/359862/ <comment><USER2> This isn't honestly terribly surprising. When the sky started falling, plenty of folks were happy to mention that bad times are only bad for people who can't afford to take advantage of them.

When stocks are crashing? That just means they become cheaper to pick up for the very rich, who get even richer when the economy straightens out again. Meanwhile, everyone who had to dump their investments to survive has to start over with less.

It shouldn't be hard to recognize that there's something terribly wrong going on here, but the tough part is trying to figure out just what to do to fix it. Hell if I know.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whenever I read an article about income inequality, I can't help but ponder the phrase "the rich get richer." Consider the process by which people acquire extreme wealth: invest your money in various vehicles, hopefully collect gains (money, prestige, experience), reinvest the gains. This process doesn't by any means guarantee wealth, but it can be very kind to those blessed with good judgement, good fortune, and initial excess capital.

In a discussion of income inequality, the most relevant factor is excess capital. For those on the bottom of the ladder, whose money goes toward basic expenses, this potentially virtuous cycle is completely out of reach. Their money is best spent on purchasing stability rather than attempting to secure wealth. For those in the middle nurturing already-comfortable lives, the upside of shooting the moon in an attempt to gain wealth is often outweighed by the risk of sustaining financially disruptive losses, as well as the discomfort inherent in turning away from a lifestyle that pleases them. [1]

Then there are the wealthy. I'm not talking about the faux-wealthy whose lifestyle preferences drive them to buy Maseratis and condos on credit and spending the rest of their lives wearing golden handcuffs. I'm talking about those who have money left over after they've secured themselves a comfortable lifestyle. They have excess capital. Ten thousand dollars can go into the stock market, a hundred thousand dollars can go into a small business, a million dollars can go into a more sizable business, ten million can go into multiple sizable businesses, etc.

The opportunities for growth scale with the size of your disposable income. If you take this view, it suddenly becomes stupidly obvious why the one percent of the one percent makes so much more than the ninety-nine percent of the one percent: they had more to begin with. I'm all but certain if you zoom in on the the one percent of the one percent of the one percent, you'll see a similar disparity.

Unrelated corollary: This also helps to explain both why traditional entrepreneurs are older, and why tech entrepreneurs tend to be younger: non- tech leaders spend their lives amassing wealth, techies are so in demand they get a good dose of it when they're young. Although the acquisition appetites of behemoths like Google and Facebook certainly don't hurt.

[1] I'm so certain someone will respond to this comment by quoting that one study where happiness flattens around like $75,000 that I won't even bother finding it myself.

<comment><USER4> But this analysis doesn't explain the change in the share of income the %1 has accumulated to itself in the last 30 years.

In other words if this analysis were complete, we would expect to see straight line growth.

<comment><USER5> Nor does it track what happened to the 1% from 30 years ago and whether they are even the same 1% today.

Until this fact is acknowledged, they have no business even bringing up numbers.

Another possible point of confusion: Maybe the top 1% aren't merely wealthier, maybe the top .1% is more numerous. Wouldn't that be good news?

<comment><USER6> > _" maybe the top .1% is more numerous."_

You may want to rethink that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The 0.1 percent isn't the same group of people every year. "

This makes it sound like some if not many members of this group are one-time members who have huge capital gains that calendar year; many of those could be entrepreneurs who sold their company or those that had a huge gain in some investment.

<comment><USER8> I think that makes sense. They're using the IRS list of the 400 richest tax returns. I think when you're making money at that level you can hire enough tax attorneys and accountants to make sure your actual taxable income is not among the 400 highest in the country unless you have some major event like selling a company. It would make sense then that there's a lot of turnover in that metric.

<comment><USER9> As a point of math, that's the top 0.0001%

(Or, as a percentage of the workforce: 0.0005%)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lies, damned lies, and statistics!

The differing quantities on the y axes of the graphs make them quite misleading. In particular between the first and tend second where the first is a relative increase and the second is in absolute income. This gives the immediate impression that the 0.01% is pulling ahead of the 0.1% at a high rate. Looking instead at the last graph we see that the 0.1% is keeping up kinda OK.

This change in quantities also makes it impossible to compare the first and second graph at all.

Using graphs is supposed to aid understanding, not impede it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Meh. Two things would be problematic:

1) The composition of the 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, etc. never changes -- not in generations. I.e. there's an entrenched aristocracy.

2) Topocracy: people are making money for their social connections rather than for their personal merits. Nature had an article on this.

[http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140121/srep03784/full/srep03...](http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140121/srep03784/full/srep03784.html)

If not [(1) and (2)], then all is well. (It isn't, of course)

<comment><USER12> > 1) The composition of the 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, etc. never changes -- not in > generations. I.e. there's an entrenched aristocracy.

Leave 1% out of this. Any couple making 150k each fits in that. That means anyone with a college degree, 15-20 years of experience, and senior managerial position. Also included in this are doctors, lawyers, and engineers. There is a lot to be said about mobility and meritocracy but I don't think you get to be a senior engineer or doctor solely because your parents were.

<comment><USER13> > I don't think you get to be a senior engineer or doctor solely because your > parents were.

True enough. But yet... I'm a senior engineer. My parents were in the medical profession. I had a lot of help going to school (not all paid for, but I graduated without significant debt). I was encouraged in my study and shielded from a lot of disruptive factors by a stable home life, which in turn is related to the stable financial situation my parents had. I'm not disavowing responsibility -- I worked hard! But I'm also conscious that that happened in an environment that was specifically and consciously tuned (thanks, Mom and Dad!) to enable me to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In general, each dollar one has makes it easier to obtain the next dollar. That's what this chart shows - wealth accumulation accelerates as wealth grows. The rich aren't necessarily doing anything wrong to achieve that effect - it's just how a capitalist system works.

If society finds this type of inequality to be objectionable, then it is society's responsibility to implement laws and policies that encourage those holding the money to reinvest it in a way that gives others access to that capital.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. When you have more capital, you have more opportunities to invest.

I remember a good friend of mine who's quite wealthy was talking to my brother-in-law and I at lunch. My brother-in-law had recently closed on a house he was intending to flip. My friend then said to my brother-in-law, "Next time you see an offer like that come through, call me. I can get you that money within 24 hours." Somewhat stunned at with my friend's offer, I then realized that the more capital you have, the more investments routes you have to your disposal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wouldn't call it "investment money". Have you seen the graphs going down(tech bubble burst 2001 and 2008). I will call it "Money press printing money", or

"let's save those that make poor decisions in the past so they don't bankrupt" money,

"let's give this people free public money at 0% interest rates so they can lend to the public at high interest rates" money.

"privatizing the profit, making public the loses" money.

Those people had basically sh#t as assets, but the central banks bought their sh#t with good money so they do not collapse the economy. The bailouts mean the public is underwater now and revolutions are coming all around the planet.

The problems are not solved, those that make bad investments have been rewarded taking money from those that create wealth.

But everything has a limit, Japan is paying 56% of their taxes in debt payment and growing. China bubble is bursting soon.

</comment><comment><USER17> This sounds like a typical power law distribution. Nothing really unusual or unexpected about that.

<comment><USER18> the time series shows that the distribution has changed over time. It is this change in distribution that people are opposed to.

<comment><USER19> A lot of people are opposed to there being a distribution more extreme than their _emotions_ tell them is reasonable.

Consider what most Americans say the "ideal" level of wealth inequality would be: [http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealth- inequality/](http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealth-inequality/) and [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/09/theoretical_egalitarians.html)

Now consider how much wealth inequality there would be in an excessively fair society: [http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in- equ...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in- equalland.html)

Clearly, people are determining their "ideal" without doing the math. This makes it hard to take their opposition to "this change in distribution" seriously as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm actually really looking forward to the day that technical people become more financially literate. There's a reason why Elon Musk is such an unstoppable force in the business world. Technical people have such a deep love of science and tech that they sometimes forget about the economic and political realities of modern western societies: capital rules all.

Understanding and managing time and capital is the most important task any individual is faced with in the western world. As I've said many times, every single person reading HN most likely undervalues their time, and ends up severely miscalculating their opportunity costs as a result. The nature of capitalism is such that taking risk is the only path forward, regardless of how many failures it results in.

As the commenters above have noted, very few become billionaires by working 9 to 5 for someone else. Work for yourself, and with equals (as co-founders). Never work as an employee. If you need to contract your services out, do it as a consultant on a milestone or hourly basis. Take absolute control of your time. No overtime, no crunch time, no favors.

Understand the system we operate in, and optimize for it. Don't be sucked in by stupid hype, marketing, "culture", free pop, ping pong tables, personality cults, or any such nonsense. Your time is worth just as much as the CEO's.

I'm hoping that once the tech world wakes up to this reality, we'll start exerting far more influence over big corps, big finance, and big government. This is the only way we can really change the world for the better. Not by being employees to big corps, but by running the show.

The Hacker mentality espouses efficiency and ingenuity. It's nigh time we applied this to our lives. It's not enough for me to do it on my own, everyone here needs to do this so that we can collectively exert influence to enact real change.

P.S. I know it may be hard to herd cats, but I've seen the community here rally around many great ideas. I want gigabit fiber everywhere, renewable energy cities, preventive genetic medicine for all, and colonies on Mars. Why haven't these happened? Because the people in charge have no vision, and are caught by the institutional quagmire of a country established 300 years ago. Just because this is the way it is, doesn't mean that it will always have to be this way.

<comment><USER21> > I've seen the community here rally around many great ideas. I want gigabit > fiber everywhere, renewable energy cities, preventive genetic medicine for > all, and colonies on Mars. Why haven't these happened? Because the people in > charge have no vision, and are caught by the institutional quagmire of a > country established 300 years ago.

I would argue that those things haven't happened because no one (including us technical people) have developed business models for those activities.

<comment><USER22> Landing on the moon was a big success, fundamental science too, and both without a business model.

One particular lack of vision stems from being hypnotised by the notion of markets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> TL:DR; The richest rich are much richer than the least rich rich, and becoming richer still.

I'm kind of struggling to find the personal relevance of a story reporting churn within the top 1%.

<comment><USER24> Because of the rhetoric being used in the political arena. If "the 1%" almost entirely changes every year, well... what's the problem with that? You're always going to have a top 1%. Don't we _want_ it to have a significant amount of turnover? Indeed, these numbers sound perhaps a bit low, if anything (is it really _that_ unstable up there? That's not obviously good to me.). If it's not the same people all the time, it's not obviously useful to be talking about them as a distinct group.

Maybe it _is_ useful. But it's something that goes from almost self-evident, to badly in need of being established.

On the other hand, the idea that a small handful of people have concentrated such vast wealth that they've disenfranchised the rest of us, a handful that is a great deal less than "the 1%", is actually a wildly more potent political story. Even this here libertarian type might be open to some significant actions taken to ensure that such concentrations of wealth are ameliorated, as a key part of my personal libertarianism is that monopoly busting is a key useful function of government, and I'd consider this to fit in, if it is true. It's still something that needs establishing, though, not mere assertion.

One has a hard time not imagining the .001% cackling with glee as the press focuses on "the 1%"; it still leaves them lost in crowd of millions, hardly singling them out for any treatment, while the 1% itself is peopled with a significant number of people who apparently worked their way up the ladder, however briefly that may have been. That doesn't sound like a good set of people to target, if there's no actual "institution" there.

And now, let me reiterate my first sentence; this is because of the political rhetoric being used. If it wasn't for that, this would be a relatively uninteresting question. But if it's going to become essentially part of the platform of one of the major parties, it's worth examining for truth value.

<comment><USER25> The evidence we have so far points to a higher churn rate the closer to the top you are. According to this [1], the top 1% had a churn rate of > 50% over a decade, while the top .01% had a churn rate of > 75% over the same period. The "Fortunate 400" mentioned by the article is something like the top .0001%, and had a churn rate of 99% over two decades.

I'd love to see deeper analysis though. What does the churn rate look like as a function of top percentile size? Do the choice of endpoint years matter significantly? Also, as you ask, what might be the optimal churn rate economically?

[1] [http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax- policy/Documents...](http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax- policy/Documents/Income-Mobility-1996to2005-12-07-revised-3-08.pdf)

<comment><USER26> What percentage of the 1% ever "churn" into the 0.01% at all? Churn makes it sound like it might be random, but I don't think that is demonstrated.

<comment><USER25> If the 1% don't churn into the 0.01% when it loses 75% of its members, then where do the replacements come from?

I agree though, longitudinal studies are the most interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One of the graphs displayed[1] really should have a logarithmic y-axis, especially since it's evidently being used to demonstrate relative growth.

1\. [http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/Screen%20Shot%...](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/Screen%20Shot%202014-03-29%20at%209.23.25%20PM.png)

</comment><comment><USER28> this isnt new news. This has been brought up before.

They question really should be "is this bad?" I have yet to see a compelling argument on why income disparity is bad.

Unless you are stealing, scamming, or otherwise breaking the law to obtain enormous wealth then you deserve it. You are providing a good or service to the economy and are rewarded appropriately. If someone else can do it better than they reap the reward. Competition ensures that only the best deliverers of value are making the money. I am sure someone will cite some bankers <insert other regulated market here> raking in money with barriers to entry that are artificial...but that 99.99% of the time means that they lobbied the US Govt for regulations which protect them.

<comment><USER29> > Unless you are [...] breaking the law [...] [y]ou are providing a good or > service to the economy and are rewarded appropriately.

Not necessarily. You are providing a good or service to _someone_ but it isn't necessarily doing any good to "the economy".

An example: You are a successful hedge fund manager. You and your team of quants have a bunch of ingenious strategies for predicting the stock market, spotting arbitrage opportunities in derivative prices, etc. You successfully help your investors to get rich, for which they pay you very handsomely. But, for the most part, what you're enabling them to do is get rich _at the expense of other market participants_. If you weren't doing your job, the net value of the equities and derivatives markets would be pretty much exactly the same; it's just that it would be parcelled up a little differently.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of that. Our hypothetical hedge fund manager isn't doing any net harm to speak of either. (There might be a bit of net good, through increasing liquidity and helping the market do its information-aggregating thing, and a bit of net good-or-harm depending on exactly who the fund's investors are.) The point is just that what a hedge fund manager is being rewarded for is _making a particular set of people rich_ in what's largely a zero-sum game, not _doing any net good_ overall.

Another example: You study baseball or American football and get very good at identifying undervalued players. You offer your service to a major team. They get some bargains, win a lot of games, and pay you a big pile of money. All very well, and again for the avoidance of doubt I don't think there's anything wrong with this -- but you've benefited one set of people at others' expense. The overall quality of play hasn't changed (the pool of players is the same and you haven't done anything to make them play better), you've just enabled one team to get a bigger slice of the same pie.

Note that none of this requires artificial barriers to entry, or crime, or even anything unethical. It's just that what you get paid for is benefiting _the people who pay you_ and often the easiest way to do that is by moving value to them from elsewhere, rather than creating it anew.

<comment><USER28> Everyone loves to cite Hedge Funds. I am no hedge fund expert but you mention a few benefits that they do provide...liquidity and information aggregating (which has derivatives such as market signalling) are very much benefits to society. What good is a stock to anyone if there isnt a liquid market to sell into (and yes the buyer should make money on that transaction). A personal hunch is that some hedge funds are breaking some laws but largely the hedge fund industry provides a net benefit to the economy. The stock market and futures markets are NOT zero sum games. They provide capital, incentive structures, and a host of other benefits to both businesses AND everyday people (like you who has a retirement fund with lots of assets that pass through hedge funds). Businesses can (and do) grow and appreciate your assets (and hedge fund assets), etc etc.

Your second example is dead wrong. Identifying undervalued resources is an enormous efficiency gain in a market. They lower their cost structure while keeping quality high. It ensures that top athletes salaries are in check because they truly need to be twice as good (or 10x as good) to be paid millions of dollars. Which makes game tickets, jerseys, etc affordable to more fans who in turn buy more tickets, fan paraphernalia, etc. Yes indeed the pool of players is set (at all of humanity) but the wealth generated from quality entertainment is not capped (or capped at the leisure money of a market). Those sports leagues are always looking to expand their market and keeping costs low is one major strategy to that.

<comment><USER29> I agree that liquidity and information aggregation are benefits to society. I just don't think that they're what a hedge fund is getting paid for, and don't see any particular reason to think that the pay of hedge fund managers is (or should be) justified by those benefits.

I didn't say, didn't mean, and don't think, that the stock or futures markets are zero-sum games. I think that _some things that happen in those markets_ are very close to zero-sum.

And, for the avoidance of doubt, I am not objecting to the existence of hedge funds nor to (most of?) what they do.

It is unclear to me how the activities of our hypothetical sports talent- spotter actually have the beneficial effect you describe. If she works for team A (and not for team B) then what happens isn't necessarily that A gets equally good players by spending less; more likely A has a fixed budget and gets better players, while B spends the same as before and gets worse players (because more of the good ones are now being taken by A). The overall quality of play stays about the same -- the teams, collectively, have the same players. The overall spending stays about the same -- each team has whatever budget it has. It's just that A is now doing better relative to B.

I'm sure there is a bit of overall benefit. For instance, the talent-spotter's activity slightly drives up the relative compensation of the better players, which means more correlation between pay and performance, which might eventually mean slightly better selection of who gets into professional sports in the first place, which would actually lead to better play overall. And perhaps making A do better relative to B means that in future A will have more budget and B less, and maybe that benefits everyone somehow. But this all seems like second-order stuff, and again it isn't what the talent-spotter is being paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wonder how many of the products and services of the top 0.01% he used in creating that article. My bet: he used MS Word on a Mac, using Google at the very least.

His next article could be about how the products of the 0.01% people have enhanced his life.

<comment><USER22> It doesn't immediately follow from the fact that 0.01% people have made fantastic contributions that they should have disproportionately so much more money than the average person.

It seems intuitive (but not logically certain) that the person who has made the greatest contribution to the world should be the richest. But by how much isn't really clear.

What would happen if Bill Gates was the richest man in the world and had $50m, instead of billions. All the incentives scale. I don't think he'd have said 'screw this, I'm not making Word for less than $2 bn'. Sure, inequality is a fair way to reward hard work and brilliance, but what level?

Looking at it another way, sure Bill Gates is a fantastically insightful and driven guy with great business acumen. Is he 100,000 times better than the average person though? Because he's earned 100,000 more than the average American.

Warren Buffett makes the point that if he was born in Bangladesh he would probably be as poor as he was when he was born. Circumstances matter.

I realize you don't say it explicitly, but the implication of what your comment is that they is some kind of cosmic justice that made Larry Page or Steve Jobs billionaires. There isn't. The right level of remuneration is a moral question, not a feature of the natural order. If you really think these people deserve these huge concentrations of wealth, why not more? How amazing could Windows have been if we'd just paid Bill Gates another $50 billion?

<comment><USER31> I tend to believe that people are paid commensurate to the degree of value they create. Bill Gates, in my opinion, has created much more than 100,000 times the value of what an average American creates. That doesn't mean he is a better human being, just that he has contributed far, far more.

<comment><USER22> Do you really think Bill Gates created equivalent value to 100,000 Americans? Bear in mind that if he hadn't created Windows, something similar would have taken its place - just as likely something better.

I've never seen a discussion of Microsoft that said its achievements are due to engineering genius. Definitely they must have had a great production line for software, but the reason Microsoft is Microsoft is that it secured itself a monopoly. That isn't adding any value.

But even if Bill Gates did add 100,000 times more value than the average American, it doesn't logically follow that he must be paid 100,000 times more. You might easily argue (I would) that the last million you pay to him doesn't make any difference at all to his happiness or motivation, and it could be much better spent else where.

<comment><USER32> > _Do you really think Bill Gates created equivalent value to 100,000 > Americans?_

No. Not equivalent, in fact he created vastly _more_ value than 100,000 Americans. Probably on the order of millions.

> _Bear in mind that if he hadn 't created Windows, something similar would > have taken its place - just as likely something better._

How does this prove your point? If something better were available then there would be someone else rich that doesn't deserve it right? What do you envision here? A world where thousands of engineers mobilize to build software who's value will be determined later by committee?

> _The reason Microsoft is Microsoft is that it secured itself a monopoly. > That isn 't adding any value._

For 10 years MS was dominant. Now the cracks are showing. MS has made plenty of engineering strides, and has some of the best executed backwards compatibility of any OS ecosystem. Again it hasn't captured even a tenth of the value it created.

> _But even if Bill Gates did add 100,000 times more value than the average > American, it doesn 't logically follow that he must be paid 100,000 times > more._

The more value generated by an endeavor, the more people will be motivated to follow. Could you imagine the sorry state of software if it was only a $100million/year industry?

Everyone along the chain benefited. Not just MS's customers, but also their shareholders and employees. BGates got rich by the unanimous agreement of all the parties involved. Show me any alternative arrangement that could possibly be better?

> _You might easily argue (I would) that the last million you pay to him doesn > 't make any difference at all to his happiness or motivation, and it could > be much better spent else where._

He's not keeping it under his mattress. Money by itself does nothing. Like most rich people he immediately looked for other possible investment opportunities. Finally he turned over the bulk of it to direct charity (including that last million). Where could this have gone 'better'?

<comment><USER22> What I'm advocating is not that a committee that determines the value of software, but that government does take an interest when a likely monopoly starts reporting really usually enormous profits.

> Bear in mind that if he hadn't created Windows... An alternative vision is > one where a plurality to vendors are in a competitive market where standards > allow OSes to interoperate. In such a market, the Windows product would not > have been nearly so lucrative.

>He's not keeping it under the mattress I understand that money circulates, but clearly it's benefits mainly accrue to the owner of the money. If it really did flow around benefiting everyone as you suggest we could just give all the money to one person and it would make no difference. There would be no profit motive at all if money really worked like this.

>Finally he turned over the bulk of it to charity I think that's extremely wise and very generous of him. I also think that it should tell you something about how he feels about his fortune. However, I don't really want to live a world where individuals can become so unreasonably wealthy, and then we cross our fingers and hope they give most of it away. Just like we don't want to live in a world where tax contributions are voluntary.

Ultimately for me there would only be sufficient inequality to persuade everyone to contribute as much as they can. That means paying some more to some very talented people to persuade them to work hard. Some people might end up 10 times richer than others, perhaps more, but no one has to be motivated by being paid 1000 times average salary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The article starts out saying that this group (the top .01%) has income that is flying away from everyone else. As with most of these articles decrying the income distribution, there is the implication that there is something nefarious about this. At the end of the article, however, we learn that there is a lot of churn in the .01% from year to year, which indicates that some people are making a lot of money, but they aren't always the same people. I doubt that most years they are hurting terribly, but it is still a very different picture than the same people earning that much money year after year.

<comment><USER34> _I doubt that most years they are hurting terribly..._

They wouldn't have to 'hurt' at all, in fact they could experience personal records for income every year, year after year, and still drop out of the top 400 (or top .01%), since it's a sliding scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is missing the point I think of the original distinction between 1% and 99%. The people below the cutoff live in a state of economic vulnerability that is ever-accelerating. The people above the line do not. If the goal was to critique power itself then yes the further divisions are necessary. I have not gotten a sense though that this is about ending inequality itself, but rather in limiting how far one should be allowed to fall in a civilized society, and how responsive a democratically elected government should be to the majority of the population's needs.

</comment><comment><USER36> I've been thinking about this for a while. Last I checked, to be in the top 1% in the US you had to have about $250K of annual income. In the Bay Area, pretty much anyone who holds the title of Director or VP (and even Senior Manager at some places) at any sizable tech company makes that much, if not a lot more. So if you work at one of those companies, you might think your Director is doing well, but you probably don't think of them as insanely wealthy.

<comment><USER37> Because they probably aren't insanely wealthy. They just have a high income, and probably have high expenses as well.

Insanely wealthy, to me, is the condition of having assets that throw off net income that puts you into the top 1% of income before you've worked 200 hours in a year. (You might have to work a bit to oversee and manage the assets, but it shouldn't represent anything like a work-a-day job.)

<comment><USER38> The big problem with the article is that the author conflates wealth and income, and switches back and forth willy-nilly, so as to render all of his claims -- without further clarification -- meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I just read this eyeopening little novel ([http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)). The premise is America evolving technology + wealth/income inequality vs another state evolving technology + all citizens have "shares" (thus ownership) & relative wealth equality.

<comment><USER40> I keep seeing this "meme" \- the "Star Trek Eutopia" vs. the massive inequality ("Elysium" being the usual fictional example).

What's interesting is that this argument ignores the "apocalyptic" scenarios I see in other contexts. They typically revolve around increasing scarcity, societal collapse due to depleted resources, etc.

They overlap only in one place; I've seen one "apocalyptic' one that argued the stratification of society means that collapse will occur because the rich/powerful are isolated from feeling the effects of the scarcity until it's too late.

But regardless; we can't have both - one where the earth's resources are depleted, and another where the bounty is so great everyone can enjoy a middle class standard of living, often without economically useful employment.

<comment><USER39> Great idea. I wonder if we could commission such a book...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What about the 1% of the 0.01%? Is there any reliable data on that? Who's to say the same thing isn't happening there?

<comment><USER42> At first I thought you were joking, but then I realized that's actually a really good question.

It'd be interesting to see a breakdown that took the top 1% of successively smaller chunks until we see just how small we can get until the chart starts to flatten out. But then again, maybe the author has already done that and just didn't feel it was important to mention. Maybe 0.01% is the point at which the disparity stops being so gigantic. E.g. the difference between the 0.001% and the 0.01% is not nearly as stark as the difference between the 0.01% and the 0.1% like we see on that second chart.

<comment><USER43> Wealth distribution follows a power law, so I'd expect the difference to be even more pronounced. The same with income as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Where is all this leading? Is someone leading some kind of action to change this or are we just gazing at the issue making ourselves all feel terrible? Is it worth changing?

It seems like this situation is pretty historically standard anyway yet there is progress on all counts.

</comment><comment><USER45> What a moronic idea, that a thousandth of a population can actually have a statistically significant effect on the entire population.

Equally moronic is the assumption that wealth is finite at any given moment, and that it can be evenly distributed, this seems very close to entirely false.

Junk journalism is driving unnecessary divisions in the U.S. culture, where it seems people used to have respect for achievers rather than resentment, and they would actually aspire to do better so they could spend that wealth the way they saw fit.

Not a day goes by without another story of resentful abuse toward people by mere association with "the 1%"(which we've already discussed to be an absurd idea). For example, there was a story on HN not too long ago about police brutality in the bay area toward people who seemed to local cops like the same kid billionaires they see on TV, as though living where some tech giants came from makes you somebody so terrible they deserve to be locked in solitary for a day after asking basic questions to their captors.

How is the U.S. ever going to move forward if they carry nothing but hatred for people who happen to be capable of investing? Whether by personal growth, or by accident of birth, these are the kinds of people they should be seeking sincere help from, rather than trampling on their rights over petty coin.

We can all go on the internet and well up all the irrational hatred we want, pick your poison. You can go be a radical feminist on the internet and you'll spend hours building irrational hatred for men. You can go join radical transgender group and spend hours building irrational hatred for the majority of the human population. You can go on the internet and be a radical religious person(not going to bother being specific here) and justify all sorts of horrible atrocities in your mind. But if you personally hate the fairly normal people that occupy these lots in life, regardless of their personal merits, be they "the 1%", or men, or people with heterosexual relationships, or people who don't agree with your religious views, then you're a monster. You're not even self-serving, you're destructive to everyone including yourself.

<comment><USER46> Americans generally venerate the wealthy and aspire to be wealthy themselves. The bitterness you're describing is primarily attributable to the very real sense that the game is rigged.

Just as "urban" and "welfare" have become stand-in buzzwords for poor African- Americans, so has the term "1%" become a phrase for, not just the wealthy, but for those among the wealthy who have gained at the expense of others through financial engineering and other schemes. For instance, these same people grew fabulously wealthy by wrecking the economy and not a single one received punishment. In fact, everyone else bailed them out and they went right back to the same schemes and obscene paydays.

Then, there's the general truth that, while people are working harder, wages are effectively stagnant for many and an increasingly larger share of the rewards are accruing to a shrinkingly tiny percentage of the population.

So, I think it's a naive false argument to blame people for "hating the rich". What they really hate is being pimped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The jump from 15% to 20% for capital gains should have some effect on that.

<comment><USER48> How? They still have gobs of principal lying around making gains. Unless you mean it will help enable more progressive taxation and income redistribution via the federal government?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> So the 0.01% would be something like only 30,000 people or families.

</comment><comment><USER50> It still bothers me they call it "Income Inequality".

</comment><comment><USER51> Innocence.

When people in the 1% prints a trillion dollars a year and hand it over to his cronies, it has nothing to do with working hard and having accumulated capital to invest and grow wealthy.

It has to do with theft, in a grand scale.

</comment><comment><USER52> "Income Inequality" is a complete misnomer in this case because even according to this article, the wealth gains are made from investment income ("And it's this investment income, rather than ordinary earned income, that's creating this extraordinary wealth gap").

Increased investment income is a good thing because it points to investment income for everyone else, too: your grandma's pension, your 401(k), your stock portfolio. This is just evidence of the pie getting bigger, not a small handful of robber barons running off with everyone's money, as this amusing "1%-er" talking point is always presented to be.

<comment><USER53> Asking because I don't understand the thought process involved in these posts. Are you purposely choosing to ignore things like the first graph that shows more than 60% (almost 80%) of people having a net negative change in income over the last 30 years or just not understanding what that graph means?</comment></comment>


Show HN: A minimal function to bind state to DOM - <AUTHOR> https://antoinemopa.github.io/bindStateToDom/ <comment><USER2> I made something almost exactly like this: [https://simulacra.js.org/](https://simulacra.js.org/)

This actually uses object getters/setters, has full support for arrays, and nested arrays of objects. There is no API beyond the initial binding, everything beyond that is just mutations on an object.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! I will definitely consider this option for my next projects! Also, I am starting to think that this sort of binding could be implemented natively by browsers, which could make many applications faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Consecutive clicks on the number increment/decrement buttons don't work.

Google Chrome Version 62.0.3202.75 (Official Build) (64-bit)

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting idea! Just wondering if there are any benefits to going down this road other than saving the 21K of bandwidth necessary for Gzipped/minified Vue.js?

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope to save on performance & memory by cutting the render step and binding immediately to dom elements (But I could be wrong, I will need benchmarks before the switch).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great as learning material.

Have you benchmarked your approach?</comment>


Dot Dot Considered Harmful - <AUTHOR> https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/docs/+/HEAD/the-book/dotdot.md <comment><USER2> >If a handle is provided to a directory, it should imply access to resources within that directory (and additionally, their subdirectories).

Maybe within Fuschia, but not in my UNIXy systems. All users on a system need r-x on /Users, but that doesn't give them r-x on every user's home directory located as a subdirectoy of /Users - a handle acquired by bob to /Users does not imply access to /Users/delinka.

Further, if your process is treating '..' as a subdirectory, you're doing it wrong. Paths must be normalized (e.g. ~ expanded, . and .. resolved) before requesting a handle via absolute path.

Lastly, this document reads as if knowing a full path grants access to that path and its subdirectories. If that's the case ... oy.

<comment><USER3> > Further, if your process is treating '..' as a subdirectory, you're doing it > wrong.

That's the point they make. And in Unix, it's _really_ easy to do it the "wrong" way (like, "type 3 characters" easy), so lots of people do.

Back before protected memory was common on PCs, some people said "If you're chasing pointers without being sure that it points to a valid address, you're doing it wrong". Well, perhaps so, but in practice lots of programs were doing it wrong, and it was the users who suffered.

Capabilities sound to me a bit like protected memory for persistent storage. It'll be a little inconvenient for a little while, and eventually we'll wonder how we ever lived without it.

<comment><USER4> > "If you're chasing pointers without being sure that it points to a valid > address, you're doing it wrong". Well, perhaps so, but in practice lots of > programs were doing it wrong, and it was the users who suffered.

Except ".." also is a solution to permitting you to traverse a directory tree without accidentally chasing an invalid pointer; no bug in your program nor any external application can ever make ".." invalid. ".." is equivalent to a back pointer in a linked list or tree structure. Imagine you have a handle to /foo/bar/baz and want to ascend to baz's parent. Between acquiring the handle to /foo/bar/baz and attempting to ascend to the parent, "baz" could have been moved and "/foo/bar" may not exist. Without ".." all of a sudden you're orphaned and your application is stuck in an inconsistent state. Maybe the best solution is to just panic, but that's like saying that all applications should be prepared for any pointer access to segfault at at any moment. That's _one_ solution, and it's actually how some smartphone application environments work. Another solution is _guaranteeing_ the condition can't happen, period. Which is preferable depends on your use cases and which side of an interface you'd prefer to place the burden. For pointers it's fairly obvious which provides the most preferable semantics for maximum safety (or it was until the smartphone and cloud paradigms), but for file systems the answer is less obvious. In Unix when ascending directory trees the scenario of a valid pointer becoming invalid is impossible such that there's always a valid path to the root of the tree (even if the depth can change; you just stop when opening ".." simply reopens the same directory), but for descent there remains the race between readdir + open (as opposed to readdir atomically returning file handles).

These particular semantics were clearly purposeful, not an accident. The former was thought useful, the latter an acceptable simplification. It's why in Unix you can't delete a populated directory in or when a process holds an open reference (unlike other file types), and why you can't hardlink directories.

<comment><USER3> > no bug in your program nor any external application can ever make ".." > invalid

Sure it can, if you consider lack of permissions to be invalid. We already do, in other similar situations.

> Without ".." all of a sudden you're orphaned and your application is stuck > in an inconsistent state.

No, it just means you need an out-of-band method to accomplish this.

> that's like saying that all applications should be prepared for any pointer > access to segfault at at any moment

No, nobody's talking about crashing. It's more like saying you can't assume you can do raw pointer arithmetic to jump around in an array. Languages like Java and Python feel restrictive to C programmers at first, too.

> Without ".." all of a sudden you're orphaned and your application is stuck > in an inconsistent state.

I don't understand these claims of races and segfaults. Doesn't Fuchsia avoid race conditions like this with VFS cookies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rob Pike apparently regrets all the "." file naming.

[https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RobPikeTheHuman/posts/R58WgWwN9...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RobPikeTheHuman/posts/R58WgWwN9jp)

<comment><USER6> This comment made me realize that there are a lot of _really good_ posts on Google Plus by people like Rob Pike, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linus Torvalds and others. For whatever reason, systems programmers liked Google Plus.

Anyway, I hope someone is archiving them somewhere, because there's a lot of knowledge there that will otherwise be lost in a few months.

<comment><USER7> My immediate thought when they announced they were shutting down was "What about Linus's posts?!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > this is an essential idea encompassing microkernels, and other "capability- > based" systems

Tiny nit, but microkernels don't imply a capability based security model. For instance Mach, QNX, Redox, etc. aren't capability based.

It's a very good idea for your microkernel to be capability based because it cuts a lot of validation out of the critical path for IPC, but it's by no means a requirement.

<comment><USER9> Mach is capability based. (Mach ports are capabilities.)

<comment><USER8> You're totally right of course.

I was falsely under the impression that the Mach port table only had a single global namespace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This may be off topic, and is hard to ask without doomsaying: but can we trust Fuchsia? Google is a machine for turning user's personal data into their dollars, and has been getting more and more crafty at achieving this goal.

I want to believe that this is a good-natured effort at improving the state of modern operating systems; but I feel like I've been burned by my trust in Google too many times.

<comment><USER11> > I feel like I've been burned by my trust in Google too many times

I'm genuinely curious about this. In what way do you feel burned?

I think I get what you're saying. I use gmail and Google uses an algorithm on gmail to decide what ads to show me when I do a search. The ads make money for Google and I don't get any of that money. All I get is free search results. I think what you're saying is that because Google is using your information to show you ads and make money that somehow you feel cheated?

But I don't feel particularly burned by this arrangement. If Google gave an option to start charging me money to avoid ads if I'm honest with myself I'm pretty sure I'll choose to continue seeing ads instead. I guess I'm curious about exactly how you feel burned.

<comment><USER12> What about when it turned out Google was tracking users second-by-second location data, even after users had removed consent and turned off locations?

<comment><USER13> I dislike Google's data slurping practices, and moved away from Gmail and other of their services years ago due to mistrust, but I think that was just an honest documentation bug. The button was to disable only the Location History feature, but the description made it sound like it was a global setting for the whole device. As a developer, I could very well see myself making that mistake; being embedded in the context, it's easy to miss how it will be read by someone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm very surprised that I agree after reading. As I read initially, I was thinking "what about..." but it's really about separation of concerns.

</comment><comment><USER15> See also: [http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/lexnames](http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/lexnames)

<comment><USER16> This paper, depending on how you look at it, either justifies the existence of dot dot, or makes it seem like a wart. IMO dot dot is too well-established and essentially sensible (in a minimal UNIX fashion) for it to be removed on a whim. Consider the approach taken by [https://man.openbsd.org/unveil.2](https://man.openbsd.org/unveil.2): if you try to access a file you aren't explicitly allowed to, you get EACCESS or ENOENT. I'm not an expert, and the possibility of errors obviously requires applications to tread more carefully than they might have previously, but it seems like a clean solution.

<comment><USER17> > removed on a whim

They changed the whole concept of having one single root. As I understand the plan is to use many fragmented and independent filesystem handles that can optionally mounted together.

So the restriction is more about non being able to access a folder if you don't have access to an appropriate handle.

Paths like folder1/folder2/../folder2/file are still perfectly fine.

<comment><USER16> To clarify: that's the Plan 9 situation. I'm talking about the merits of the Fuchsia situation (".. is no longer available").

References to a forbidden parent directory from a chroot can just return ENOENT, because it doesn't exist in that universe. I may not be understanding this fully, but to condemn ".." based on some accusation that it's incompatible with chroot semantics (or "a holdout from POSIX") seems tendentious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is ironic this is coming out of a company with an internal site dedicated to depreciating "Considered Harmful" because it is the epitome of grandstanding.

Here is some further reading on why we should downvote these types of things into oblivion: [https://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html](https://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html)

<comment><USER19> That's a silly article. The essay says that we should disregard essays if they have a title like the essay's own, so... pradox.

When "considered harmful" is considered flaimbait rhetoric, perhaps the problem is with the readers who refuse to engage with any mildly-worded criticism.

<comment><USER7> It's surely in how the reader interprets it, but I always read "considered harmful" as quite mild but to the point. Something like "isn't great".

A refreshing opposite of clickbait as the actual proposition is in the title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For irony sake one may link this file as

        https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/docs/blob/master/the-book/../../master/the-book/dotdot.md

<comment><USER21> Nope, that actually 404's. It may appear to work, because most browsers will apply some equivalent to the `__fdio_cleanpath()` function mentioned in the article, resolving the traversal locally.

You can verify this as follows:

        curl -I --path-as-is 'https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/docs/blob/master/the-book/../../master/the-book/dotdot.md'

<comment><USER20> if most browsers apply it... doesn't that means it works? Maybe not in the resolved-by-the-server-returning-a-304 sense but in at least some sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > at the time of writing, symbolic links do not exist on Fuchsia

Is this for technical reasons, or similar philosophical ones because symbolic links also allow for escaping from "jails"?

<comment><USER23> Their whole "scheme", where ".." can be dealt with as a canonicalizing step _BEFORE_ submitting the path to the OS for actual opening, seems to require refinement when symlinks are involved.

Take a perfectly spherical unix:

        $ mkdir /tmp/hn
        $ cd /tmp/hn
        $ ln -s . foo; mkdir bar; touch baz
        $ ls -l bar/../baz foo/baz foo/../baz
        ls: cannot access 'foo/../baz': No such file or directory
        -rw-r--r-- 1 jepler jepler 0 Nov 28 18:21 bar/../baz
        -rw-r--r-- 1 jepler jepler 0 Nov 28 18:21 foo/baz

Fuscsia-with-symlinks would have some extra hoops to jump through to make rewriting act like POSIX in the case that /tmp/hn is not escaped, which surely you'd want if you went ahead and introduced symlinks.

<comment><USER24> > which surely you'd want

Nope. I don't want that at all. There's a reason that by default cd goes out of its way to make .. ignore the parent of a symlink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > What about shell traversal? > [..] For example, if the CWD is "/foo/bar", > and a user calls "cd ..", then the underlying call may be transformed into > "chdir /foo/bar/..", which can be canonicalized to "/foo".

So fuchsia also won't have CWD, then? Because if it has CWD, then the process can always chdir / rendering this lack-of-.. exercise pointless.

<comment><USER26> I think the idea in Fuchsia is that directories can be passed as resources to children processes, which can then move freely around in that directory structure. If the parent passes a child "/foo/bar/", the child sees "bar/" and it's contents, which might be "bar/baz/bingo/". The child can then move to "/bar/baz/bingo/" do work there, and then recurse up the hierarchy. It simply cannot ".." out of "foo/".

Hope that makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Given that they're still resolving "..", they're just resolving it in code client-side before requesting the content, they really haven't gotten rid of "..": they've implemented a path sanitization library, similarly to how many other frameworks (notably those designed to serve files over the web) behave.

<comment><USER28> No, it's deeper than that. They are describing the capabilities of a process handed a file descriptor, which means it does not have a path at all. There's no way to resolve '..' relative to no path.

Compare that to a POSIX system where a directory has an actual child which is a reference to the directory's parent whose name is always '..'.

The talk about resolving '..' is merely a demonstration that the behavior of "cd .." can be supported/emulated in a context where you have both an open directory and corresponding path, without requiring that '..' literally exist.

<comment><USER29> To add to that, as the document writes in the very first section, it can sort of be thought of as a chroot. You can't .. out of a chroot; there is no "..". (Yeah, it's not exactly a chroot; that's well covered in the document.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's a thing born in google. It shows. The reasoning behind problems and solutions is so abstract that makes for a beautiful paper or a nightmarish reality. In the '80s there was a little known machine, called the Commodore Amiga. Paths were addressed by a volume:folder/file schema. Apps had logical volumes too (progdir:) and the os injected others (env: temp: fonts: ..) guess what? Just use that schema and control what an app can access or not. If you don't give me a volume for a disk, I cannot make my way to it if it's not collated into a mountpoint thing

<comment><USER31> This particular idea wasn't born in Google; it traces back through previous secure OSes like EROS and KeyKOS maybe with a dash of Plan 9 thrown in.

<comment><USER32> NLTSS as well

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> That's why tools like gosec complain when user input is used to access files - specifically because '..' allows one to "escape".

Gosec: [https://github.com/securego/gosec](https://github.com/securego/gosec)

</comment><comment><USER34> So can a process create a symlink a la

        ln -s ../../.. root

And gain access? Or are symlinks now fucked with too? This seems like a poorly thought out plan, and unnecessary at that.

<comment><USER35> > This seems like a poorly thought out plan, and unnecessary at that.

Welcome to Google Future (c). Enjoy your stay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Any good papers to read on fuchsia?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is ironic

cd..

Here you go [https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/docs/+/HEAD/the- book/](https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/docs/+/HEAD/the-book/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> i really wish the "considered harmful" meme/trope/whatever would take a nap.

</comment><comment><USER38> This should probably point at the upstream page by the fuchsia project ([https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/docs/+/HEAD/the- book/dotdot...](https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/docs/+/HEAD/the- book/dotdot.md)) rather than a mirror source repo

<comment><USER39> Sure thing, we've updated the link from [https://github.com/fuchsia- mirror/docs/blob/master/the-book/...](https://github.com/fuchsia- mirror/docs/blob/master/the-book/dotdot.md).

<comment><AUTHOR> I was wondering who updated it. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "considered harmful" considered harmful

The origin of the meme was an editor's labeling of Dijkstra's commentary. Titling your own article this makes it seem like you wrote the article, forgot you wrote it, found it again, and are presenting it to others as an interesting perspective.

</comment><comment><USER41> That makes it impossible to properly implement POSIX on top of it and seems like a poor design.

The correct design is to have both a "root" and a "current object" associated with every "file descriptor object" and allow ".." to work up to the "root" (and thoughtfully handle cases where the "current object" is moved outside the "root").

You can't do it with paths because that doesn't track directories being renamed, that would cause the descriptor to suddenly become inaccessible in the middle of an operation.

<comment><USER42> > That makes it impossible to properly implement POSIX on top of it

so don't implement posix. I don't know why people get so hung up on new oses being POSIX compliant.

<comment> vertex-four Mostly because being POSIX compliant makes it far easier to port a lot of command-line and server-side software quickly. Most new operating system projects don't have the manpower to rewrite the world - I think the last major one was probably Android.

<comment><USER43> You'd be surprised how generic most code is or how easy it is to port if it's POSIX-like. Out of the major consumer OSes, only OSX is POSIX certified (in 10.5 which is only 11 years ago). Hell, the majority of Android code is written in Java which has no POSIX roots at all so avoiding POSIX isn't a death knell you seem to imply. iOS, while it supports POSIX, most of the developers use iOS-specific APIs unless they're in shared code with another OS & not using something like Boost. Have you actually tried using POSIX networking APIs? They're god awful. POSIX threading primitives are terrible. etc etc.

POSIX is sometimes useful for writing cross-platform C/C++ code. It's extremely limiting though, out-of-date, & doesn't actually offer the write- once run anywhere you'd like with POSIX.

You can write POSIX code that will fail to build, fail at runtime, or even behave incorrectly when you run it on another "POSIX" system (at least as far as Windows/Linux/OSX/Android are concerned). Certainly a far cry from how a standard is supposed to behave.

POSIX also, for the most part, targets the lowest common denominator of platform features which means the POSIX API isn't as rich as makes sense for the majority of applications, doesn't have the same performance/security, and/or isn't as easy-to-use.

POSIX also leaves many subtle decisions to implementations' discretion which means that even if everything works in the happy path, it'll break in subtle corner cases. For example, PATH_MAX is defined as 256, _XOPEN_PATH_MAX is 1024, but Linux & OSX both have unbounded limits so a POSIX program can easily fail to be able to open all files on an OS; making this a build-time constant was the stupidest decision in the world & endemic of how POSIX is designed.

Most modern language runtimes these days (Rust, Go, Java, Swift) comes with a far richer, less bug-prone & more feature-full set of features in the standard library out-the-gate on all platforms (so you just need to port the 1 standard library) & most libraries build on that standard library so you usually get them for free.

Most platform vendors also provide custom APIs to interact more richly with their specific features for performance, battery, usability, security, etc. To take full advantage of a platform, which you're pushed to usually by market forces, POSIX doesn't help you.

* EDIT: Also, POSIX is gigantic. The majority of useful existing tools probably use 20% of the entire standard. Porting that smaller API surface isn't challenging.

<comment><USER44> Basically POSIX is the C standard library they didn't want to make part of ISO C.

As you well point out hardly significant when using other programming languages, even C++ standard library improvements are making it less relevant for C++ devs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Coming from Ruby, NodeJS annoys the crap out of me with its lack of decent autoload functionality. Seeing relative paths in modules really annoys me. JS world can't figure out what should be global and what should be local it seems.

<comment><USER46> What do you mean? Global packages are global, local packages are local.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's interesting to think that the goal of '..' was for navigation around the command line shell. Which is a tool that 95% of people developing software never really use, or use as a necessity (type one command and leave). It's really an interesting thought piece to consider that the idea of the '..' directory is as legacy as the headphone jack.

<comment><USER48> I think you vastly under estimate the usage of command lines by developers. Not to mention opts and admins.

I don't think there is a week that has passed in the last 10 years that I haven't used the command line for something.

To the point of the article, it sounds like the client will handle the work the server once did in parsing the navigation and path commands.

Though the lack of symlinks sounds like it would be the a more painful loss than ".."

Both of these would likely require many *nix utils to be changed to be compatible.

<comment><USER49> A week! If I go an hour without using the command line, then it's because I'm not actually coding.

<comment><USER50> I actually code in the command line, usually. Vim.

<comment><USER51> Terminal, not command line.

<comment><USER52> Terminal emulator, not Terminal.

<comment><USER51> What does it matter if it is emulated or real?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where do you upload product screencast to? - <AUTHOR> Where do you upload your screencast to? I don't want to upload it on youtube because it will show relevant videos and ads. I was thinking of using Vimeo but it doesn't offer HD.
I need to make the screencast intro video quickly accessible on the main site as soon as a visitor lands on the page and clicks watch video. I wonder if cloudflare has this option?
Also, side question. I wonder how people create those 'cartoony' animations explaining your product with Apple-esque inspirational music that seems to be prevalent. <comment><USER2> To answer te question about the cartoony animations, a fairly popular piece of software in internet marketing (IM) communities like Warrior Forum is Easy Sketch Pro. Be warned though, like with all internet marketing products, not all reviews are real (affiliates pushing products). It's okay software for the price, but if you decide to buy it I would recommend to use a new e-mail alias, unless you like to receive other IM offers and upselling - a lot of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> was promising until i saw the guy walking in yacht....wait can i use this software to get rich by trading currencies? I got confused. The site looks like one of those 'I make $4000 a day, I show you how" types.

<comment><USER2> You're not wrong, I had the same initial reaction. It's no coincidence the name of the software vendor is Inner Circle Riches. Just remember we're not the target market. The website targets the 'get rich quick internet marketing' world, and that's not always the prettiest world on the internet.

However if you can get over it, the software is fairly decent for basic hand sketching animations and usable for regular marketing or educational/instructional purposes. Just remember to set up a new mail account to purchase the software.

Another option I just discovered while researching my answer is VideoScibe ([http://www.videoscribe.co/](http://www.videoscribe.co/)). Looks far more professional, but it's also more expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> take a look at [http://www.wistia.com](http://www.wistia.com). It provides everything you asked for.

<comment><AUTHOR> looks good i'll check it out.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much would you pay for a code review? - <AUTHOR> Let's say you have a side project and want to get your code reviewed. What is the maximum amount you are willing to pay for getting your code reviewed? What is the minimum amount you would like to receive to review someone's code? <comment><USER2> zero-sadly...

So many people would review it for free. If you're experienced, you would ask those you trust. If you're new, go to a MeetUP.

There are too many SR devs available to mentor.

</comment><comment><USER3> zero. i could get an opinion anywhere; if i want a peer review i'll make sure to ask someone i think would have a relevant opinion.

</comment><comment><USER4> What guarantee is there you wouldn't just take the code for yourself?</comment>


Browser-based circuit simulator - <AUTHOR> http://www.neuroproductions.be/logic-lab/ <comment><USER2> Browser-based here means the browser has the complex duty of delegating all control to the Flash plugin.

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually thought you were talking about this: <https://www.circuitlab.com/>

I just came across it the other day, and though I haven't played with it a ton yet, it seems like an extremely useful tool for learning about electronic circuits.

<comment><USER4> That is the best online schematic tool I have ever seen, hands down. Bookmarking now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's in flash, duh. (I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but nowadays something done in flash is not something done in the browser)

</comment><comment><USER6> Also see: <http://falstad.com/circuit/> (Java applet)

<comment><USER7> Another one: <http://logic.ly/demo/>

<comment><USER8> Company I work for also just soft-launched <http://www.partsim.com> into this space about a week ago. No browser plugins needed I believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Delightful. I made this!

<http://www.neuroproductions.be/logic-lab/index.php?id=9342>

<comment><USER10> Cool, now i'm a gonna try and reduce the number of components to do the same ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Its a interesting site :) However I couldnt figure out how to connect one output to two inputs.

<comment><USER12> Look under the "Extras" category. There's a 1 to 3 "splitter".

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So.. it's like a nerfed version of LabView</comment>


Model performs at human levels on standard intelligence test - <AUTHOR> http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2017/01/making-ai-systems-see-the-world-as-humans-do.html <comment><USER2> As much as I love this HN headline, I have to say that it would have been better to retain the original exactly.

My first reaction to the headline was "Oh, that's interesting. Who? Tyra Banks? Naomi Campbell? Surely not Cindy Crawford!"</comment>


Ask HN: Do patent trolls hassle open source projects? - <AUTHOR>

Does it make a difference if the project is commercial or not?
Hypothetical scenario. Say I have a moderately successful application and I publish all or parts of its source code. How likely is this to make me a target for patent trolls?
No matter the nature of a product, it's fair to assume that at least something somewhere in its implementation has already been done and patented - I remember reading about a linked list patent some while ago. <comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group#SCO- Linux_lawsuits_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group#SCO- Linux_lawsuits_and_controversies) If you ever meet cowboy Darl, be sure to laugh heartily in his greedy face.

If your software threatens monopolies, they will fight back.</comment>