Should Younger Developers be Paid More? - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/3921006/Should-Younger-Developers-be-Paid-More.htm

<comment><USER3> A previous boss once said to me "I don't want to pay to train current engineers, I'm going to hire someone who knows X already".

Experienced engineers who were more than capable of learning something soon realized that their growth at company was limited b/c boss didn't see them as being different than their current state. So, if you are code Java now, boss thinks you are a "java engineer". People started to leave quickly.

Experience shows what not to do more than it shows what to do. Imagine someone who "knows python" trying to build django, twisted or tornado w/out having general real world experience, domain experience or really understanding why those need to be built. That is a recipe for disaster.

Smart, capable engineers are constantly reinventing themselves. If they feel they are not going to be given a chance to work on something interesting b/c they don't have X on their resume they will move on. The business will suffer as they take domain knowledge and experience with them.

That boss is still at that company. Engineering staff has over 150% turnover in past 18 months (when above boss started). Most engineers have moved onto things that are much more glamorous and interesting but still say they would have preferred to stay there and work on that system. The company itself has slowly started to lose market share and customers are not renewing their contracts. A former clear #1 in the space has become a #3 or #4 at best. Those months watching this boss destroy this company are some of the best lessons I could ever learn...on what not to do and how not to do it.

<comment><USER4> There was an excellent comment on a previous article that I can't find now, someone said, when you join a company, it's because you meet their minimum requirement. You work hard and in a few years, you're a badass at what you do - but because the change was gradual, no-one really notices it. The only way to monetize your new level of skill is to jump ship and join another company as "the guru".

<comment><USER3> Was this the comment?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2095406>

<comment><USER4> Yes! Well found :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meh. The whole thing is based on an anecdote which may or may not even be true.

Anybody who pays a premium for new college grads is an idiot. Comp Sci programs don't teach you what you need to know to produce production code. It takes a good three or four years of professional experience for people to pick that up. Some never do.

There's a reason new grads are having a hard time getting hired in this crappy economy. It's not because employers don't know better - it's because employers _do_ know better. Yeah, it sucks to be in that chicken-and-egg position, but everybody was there in the beginning.

<comment><USER6> I guess if the Facebook thing is true, it means that they find the market for really talented engineers very tight right now so instead or making bets on the best comsci talent in the hope that they can quickly get them up to speed on writing good production code.

<comment><USER5> Right now the market just isn't that tight, so even assuming that would ever be a good strategy it certainly isn't one now.

More likely it's a rumor that grows with the telling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While I an appreciate that person's position of getting to market quickly, but I find it hard to believe that you couldn't competently train shart engineers in a week or two on mobile app technology.

I recall at one of my companies we had some incredibly strong devs, but all with Unix backgrounds. We needed them up to speed on Windows and COM. We did two courses for them -- probably WinTellect or something (one Windows, the other COM). In less than a month we had a small team of Windows devs that were as strong as any I'd seen.

We hired for really bright people first. Moving them to the technology was pretty easy. And if one month is the difference between making and breaking a market, you may want to reassess the market.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Good developers are good developers. The same traits that make someone successful on one platform are identical to what will make them successful on another.

If you pay more for certain training backgrounds, you're paying _only_ for the few weeks/months required for a good dev to come up to speed on the new technology. The company in the article probably spent tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars more than they needed to for virtually no gain, unless those few weeks/months made a critical time-to-market difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Technology is a brutal industry for those that fall off the leading edge. Anyone who's considering going into it should know that.

It's often worth it to have periodic career breaks simply to refresh your skillset. Found a startup in whatever the hottest area is. Take on a side project to teach yourself something knew. Switch to a new job working on hipper technologies.

But if you're expecting to gradually keep your head down and put in your 40 hours a week at the same employer for the next ten years, you're going to be disappointed. Basically everything you started out knowing will be obsolete by then.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. Really the article is about paying more for more skilled developers (or at least, ones with skills that you need) rather than just senior vs. junior.

IMO, both the employer and developer are to blame in the scenario given. The developer hasn't kept his skills current, sure, but also the employer/customer requires the new hotness by next week and nobody has thought to train any of their existing developers in it (and end up paying a 130% premium).

<comment><USER11> _The developer hasn't kept his skills current_

This comment and similar comments I've seen on this post seem to be implying that every developer needs to continuously be learning the latest technology/platform -- in this case mobile.

I really don't think that makes sense. Technology is way too diverse to expect everyone to know everything. Do you think every web developer needs to be able to develop iPhone apps (and vice versa) ?

It seems to me that the post has more to do with the employer discovering an inconsistency in the way they were evaluating the value of their employees. Is the mobile developer really generating more value for the company than the backend/customer logic guy with 10 years experience. I doubt it, and judging by the outcome the manager seems to agree.

<comment><USER5> From what I can tell after the little iPhone boomlet subsided there's not a whole lot of money in mobile apps. How many minecrafts are there, really, out there?

<comment><USER12> There is a market in developing mobile software as part of a general mobile platform. Making the mobile app for salesforce.com and what not. Also a good majority of smartphone users don't really pick up on the apps and are starting to get more into customizing their cellphone and what not, there is a wave on the horizon of smart phone users using their phones more and getting apps and what not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a market inefficiency in that wages are dominated not by one's value to the company today but by one's value to the company the last time one engaged in free negotiations for wages. This inefficiency is persistent and exploitable. If you're being underpaid, changing jobs is the simplest, most reliable way to fix that.

<comment><USER14> "Ooh but then you're disloyal and a job hopper!" - Calacanis et al.

As I stated last time, only businessmen and finance grads are allowed to exercise self-interest. When labor starts responding to the market they get _really_ mad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've realized another problem with the situation described in the article. Let's say I work at a company, and I have skills U, V, W, and X, and I know the company's systems in and out. I've been there for 10 years and am an excellent employee.

The company needs someone with skills Y and Z, for some new project. They hire some kid, and pay him 30 or 40% more than they are paying me. They tell me they have to pay that, because there is a lot of competition for people with Y and Z. OK, fine--although if management had done their job and figured out we would need Y and Z ahead of time, I would have been happy to learn Y and Z.

So what happens a year down the road, when that new project is done, and we no longer need Y and Z, and that kid is now doing the same work I do--but with a lot less knowledge of the company systems, a lot less experience in U, V, W, and X, and is still making 30% more than me?

Is the company going to cut his pay to match mine? That won't work--the kid will quit. Are they going to raise my pay (and everyone else in a similar situation) to match the kid's? Probably not financially viable.

They are going to have to find something to do for the prior workers at this point, or moral is going to be low, and they will probably have a lot of people leaving.

Alternatively, if Y and Z turn out to be something the company still needs a year after hiring the kid, then by that time the rest of us will probably have learned them, too, after seeing how lucrative such skills are. Do we all get raises up to the kid's level? If we are actually now doing Y and Z we'd certainly expect at least equal pay. If we aren't doing Y and Z, then we should be going to other companies that need Y and Z, and getting the big bucks.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's a bit unpleasant if you're on the wrong side of the equation but it's just market forces. Mobile application developers were scarce while normal developers were plentiful.

The big lesson is that you should continually refresh your skills and develop new things on your own time.

</comment><comment><USER17> I feel hourly rates for consulting could be driven by "hot" skills, but not employee rates. Any manager who pays new employees less than old ones is asking for trouble like this. HR departments should also prevent this, if they have their act together.

That being said, nobody should get too bent out of shape if someone else makes more than them. If you agree to work for a salary, then live with that decision... don't come crying to management because someone else bargained better.

<comment><USER18> _That being said, nobody should get too bent out of shape if someone else makes more than them. If you agree to work for a salary, then live with that decision... don't come crying to management because someone else bargained better._

Bullshit. If someone with practically the exact same skillset as you is being paid significantly more than you're being underpaid for the company's own evaluation of your skillset. What you should do is say: my skills are worth x and y is getting paid that; if you don't increase my salary proportionately that I will go work for someone else at market rates.

Of course, if the issue is just that your coworker is for some reason getting paid far over his skill set or market rates then they just got lucky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Lost in all of this are the dedicated engineers who have put blood, sweat and tears into an organization, only to be left behind when technology changes. But is it their own fault? The company's fault? Or just a natural cycle?_

Let's say you join a company as, I dunno, a Unix sysadmin. When you go in, it's because they hired you for your Unix skills. But after 5 years, your value to the company isn't just those skills anymore, it's that you know the company's systems, its business, the particular way "we do things here", you have a network of people within the organization and can "get stuff done" and so on. And probably, by now, your Unix skills are falling a bit behind, because the company is not about the bleeding edge, they say if it ain't broke don't fix it (many large organizations only upgrade when the vendor desupports something) and besides, your time is spent in meetings now.

So people can fall into a trap - they're doing very well in the company - <USER2> don't even notice they're falling behind until it's too late...

</comment><comment><USER19> I've noticed (in several years as an intern software engineer) that it's responsibility and foresight that separate junior and senior level developers, technical skill less so.

Having in depth skill with a new technology is certainly a desirable attribute but I'd rather have the reliability of a n experienced developer (especially since they should be able to pick up something new).

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't want to rag on this article but heck if I can figure out what the point is.

This is very easy. If you know stuff that few other people know, you can make more money. Once everybody figures out that's where the money is, the money isn't there any more.

Companies will only pay to train you after they have figured out they need something -- and with most companies this is about six months or more after they actually needed it. So they are in a bind and have to hire talent immediately. Folks who come in knowing what the company wants pick up the extra bucks.

The trick here is that you cannot rely on your company to train you. You have to figure out where the market is going, all on your little lonesome, and then do whatever you can to master the tech -- including writing programs for local charities if that's what it takes to get real-world experience -- before the market gets there. This is called investing in your future. It's the tech equivalent of going to night school.

I've been playing this game for a long time, and I've been the young buck making the big bucks (although I've never been the older complainer guy). After I worked my way through code monkey, architect, lead, and pm roles, I ended up training and watching software teams. So I've literally either participated in or worked with folks helping and evaluating hundreds of teams.

Best teams? If I had to generalize, I'd pick the old guys who keep picking up new tech. They know the business, they've been around long enough to play nice with others, and -- if they've stayed current this long -- genuinely are having a fun time with what they do. Plus they tend not to get stressed out by too much. Second best? A mixed team with mostly young guys with lots of current tech and a couple older guys to provide that gray-beard kind of balance.

But that's just a generalization, and like all generalizations it's very limited in its application. Each team is completely different. That's what makes this biz so much fun. Just like my generalizing, I think companies get too caught up in buzzwords. Smart guys with good attitudes can do a lot. I wouldn't go ape-shit with concern simply because buzz word X wasn't in somebody's job experience (or vice-versa) If you know you have to learn X for this next project and you're sitting around waiting on somebody else to come and teach it to you? That's just a little bit too passive for my tastes.

I hate to sound like such a hard-ass (well maybe not really) but this is a very simple business that hasn't changed much in several decades. The pace might have changed, sure, and the tech is all new, but the mechanics of being a good project member, what makes a good project, and how people get paid and such are all the same as they were in 1980 or something. Not much mystery to kick around here in this narrow area of "why Joe makes 30% more than Fred"

</comment><comment><USER21> The biggest thing that jumped out at me was his response, when confronted by his team lead. This manager totally waffled on the issue, than continued to waffle, using language that just screams (to me) "you're getting screwed and I don't have the balls to be honest with you about what's going on." Managers like that, I have a really hard time trusting.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think the title is a little misleading ... but I understand that "Should Younger Developers with a hot and in demand skillset be paid more" is too long and not as interesting.

That being said, I don't really understand what the dev was upset about ... Its just good ol' supply and demand.

Being skilled at new hot technology is always a good thing. In my short time as a dev, I've seen the crazy salaries for WPF (.NET), Rails, facebook (if that counts) and now iphone/android developers and I'm sure this won't be the last time either.

Want to make $200k+? Pick up the skills that are attracting that kind of coin. Simple.

</comment><comment><USER15> Possible solution: hire them as contractors. People expect contractors to get paid more, so your current employees will stay reasonabye gruntled.

<comment><USER23> You also aren't stuck with overpaid employees once everyone lese is up to speed. That actually might be a downside for the highly paid youngsters. Once everyone else has caught up with them, why keep them for such a high price?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Should managers think they are going to sneakily hire new, inexperienced people for high salaries and not catch flak from long time employees?

</comment><comment><USER25> More appropriate questions include: Should I pay more for ability to learn? Should I pay more for already knowing how to do what I need done?

Some people start out eager to learn, but lose it. And others become learning machines. Pay more for the latter, regardless of their age.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm curious, what is the career path and salary looking like for people in these situations as time progresses? For example, someone at Facebook who might be paid $120k, how much higher is their salary going to get as they get older and more experienced?

<comment><USER27> Typically bonuses and stock grants will become the major part of ones total compensation. Base salary will grow but probably not by that much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So today I learned two things from the front page on Hacker News: 1) College students aren't really learning anything in college. 2) Fresh, young college grads should be paid more.

Makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER29>
      George looked down and sighed. "So you are telling me
      there are no guarantees, and oh by the way, you want me
      to mentor these new guys on the business requirements?"

      "Yep, that sums it up," I responded, not half as
      convinced as I sounded.

      "Well, that sucks."

It sounds like this engineer didn't learn anything. What he should've done was quit on the spot and started updating his skillset. He should've taken his experience and applied it to new technology, and then bring it to a completely new company with new problems to tackle and hopefully an even higher salary.

<comment><USER10> Senior engineers usually have a mortgage and kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Two of the most productive, and accurate, and quick -- while accurate -- fellows I worked with were getting into their 40's. Our boss was a bit younger, but stood well apart from his peers in capability (and pleasantness).

My impression from this: It's the person, not the age.

EDIT: I've had the opportunity to work with some plenty smart women, too. (I realized the prevalence of the masculine in the above.) Again, several were "older". Same conclusion.</comment>


Laretal – The social network of ideas - <AUTHOR> https://www.laretal.com <comment><USER2> Signed up to see what it's like, but can't find any content. Maybe it needs some explore-feature or links to example content or featured content until there is more to be found through search.</comment>


Ask HN: What music do you code to? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I cannot believe no one mentioned Music for Programming[0].

[0] [https://musicforprogramming.net](https://musicforprogramming.net)

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

From their about page :

Through years of trial and error - skipping around internet radio stations, playing our entire music collections on shuffle, or just hammering single albums on repeat, we have found that the most effective music to aid prolonged periods of intense concentration tends to have a mixture of the following qualities:

\- Drones

\- Noise

\- Fuzz

\- Field recordings

\- Vagueness (Hypnagogia)

\- Textures without rhythm

\- Minor complex chords

\- Early music (Baroque, lute, harpsichord)

\- Very few drums or vocals

\- Synth arpeggios

\- Awesome / daunting / foreboding

\- Walls of reverb

Music possessing these qualities can often provide just the right amount of interest to occupy the parts of your brain that would otherwise be left free to wander and lead to distraction during your work.

<comment><USER3> I've spent a heck of a lot of time listening to Music for Programming.

Recently, I stumbled upon the following as well and like them maybe a bit more:

\- A strange, isolated place (ASIP)

\- Headphone Commute

This is pretty much all I listen to nowadays while programming or commuting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I made a 25-hour Spotify playlist for myself of soundtracks, mostly from films:

[https://open.spotify.com/user/22p7kffssooevmhucglnnz6ci/play...](https://open.spotify.com/user/22p7kffssooevmhucglnnz6ci/playlist/31buZEaVGW9f5Y4cEcKtbt?si=DCebatc9RtmwsupGFHMXEQ)

(e.g. John Williams, Tyler Bates, Hanz Zimmer, James Horner, Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman, Alexandre Desplat, etc).

There is a smattering of video game soundtracks in there (by far my favorite composer is Christopher Tin), but the key is avoiding any 8-bit or classic "beep beep" songs. Those would break my coding flow.

Ironically, as uninspired as modern Marvel movie soundtracks are, they're perfect for concentrating on code, with a random uplifting nudge or a drop into quiet here and there.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mostly music from: [https://www.di.fm/](https://www.di.fm/)

Most often this: [https://www.di.fm/goapsy](https://www.di.fm/goapsy)

</comment><comment><USER6> At home: nothing. At work: "We didn't start the fire" \- Billy Joel (it feels appropriate)

</comment><comment><USER7> I go on youtube and try out some of the "epic music mixes," which have a lot of soundtrack type music on them. Also, I have to give a tip of my hat to Ambient Worlds, who have made some great long "rainy mood" mixes that are great for backgrounds.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30b7_S0paCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30b7_S0paCQ)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N- IREy7C9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N-IREy7C9s)

<comment><USER8> Yes! I've told people about this before and people either hate it or love it: "Holy Shit - An Incredibly Epic Playlist" | [https://open.spotify.com/user/ruhin94/playlist/0bG1EMQkukEeO...](https://open.spotify.com/user/ruhin94/playlist/0bG1EMQkukEeO7vvcQQQYU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Usually one or the other of some kind of metal, classical of some sort, or some kind of electronic music, probably synthwave/darkwave/retrowave or something of that ilk.

Occasionally hip-hop, pop, or "other".

</comment><comment><USER10> "Soundtracks."

That isn't a genre, but each soundtrack offers has its own themes and style. Depending on mood you can have techno (Hackers/Matrix), fantasy (LOTRs/Interstellar), Pop (Greatest Showman/Guardians of the Galaxy), Regional Styles (Last Samurai/Moana), or even just calming/relaxing (Sims 3: Pets).

PS - Try not to dismiss soundtracks just because you never liked the movie/game. I never played the Sims 3, let alone the "Pets" expansion, but the soundtrack remains me of SimCity's sound.

</comment><comment><USER11> Too often I get stuck reading/writing/editing for days on end to nix deadlines, with nothing but coffee and pot because those are free and free is all I can afford. I've been hypnotized by this edit quite a lot lately:

[https://youtu.be/DmQmepDPg6I](https://youtu.be/DmQmepDPg6I)

I'm frankly not in the best setup for this kind of work but music like this makes me feel like I _am_ the calm eye of a hurricane, letting me do what I need.

</comment><comment><USER12> Eh, I usually don't. But when I need to bang out a bunch of repetitive code, I'll throw on something intense and fast-paced.

</comment><comment><USER13> Classical piano music is stellar to code to, specifically composers in early classic and baroque eras like Bach and early Mozart. Music like that is great, because it does not usually have a large range of dynamics and does not have super exciting contrasting parts which can be distracting.

Jazz is good also, but that can sometimes get annoying after awhile or can be too exciting and distracting.

</comment><comment><USER14> ItaloDisco / Eurobeat

</comment><comment><USER15> Gabber, noise, and grindcore

</comment><comment><USER16> Even though I don't like it, I normally just start one of those "focus" playlists from Spotify. It's harder for me to concentrate if I listen to something I actually like I guess.

</comment><comment><USER17> My playlist:

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

</comment><comment><USER18> SomaFM groove salad is great! I feel like since I only listen to it while doing work it snaps me into work mode. It's easy to zero in and forget that the music is playing.

</comment><comment><USER19> Odesza, Nombe, Ben Murray Smith, Volvo, SG Lewis. Electronic recommendations under 'Discover' in Spotify.

Or brain.fm if I really want no lyrics and to focus.

</comment><comment><USER20> Music without words and too much emotion. Currently tabla concerts fit the bill — complex irregular repetitive rhythms.

</comment><comment><USER21> Dan Terminus is my favorite for coding.

</comment><comment><USER22> Lemon Jelly, Ratatat

</comment><comment><USER23> Nothing in particular. It could be any music I am comfortable with.

</comment><comment><USER24> Punk rock, dubstep, electronic, drum and bass.

</comment><comment><USER25> I listen to dance music, with no words. Mostly trance and acid.

</comment><comment><USER26> The "radio" soundtrack from the Sims

</comment><comment><USER27> Psy Trance mostly. Sometimes classical.

</comment><comment><USER28> Trance. Today: Stoneface & Terminal

</comment><comment><USER29> I prefer techno. Darker the better.

</comment><comment><USER30> Aphex Twin. Anything with drones.

</comment><comment><USER31> Amon Amarth

Or similar.

</comment><comment><USER32> lastly: vaporwave. anything from Vektroid is fine.

</comment><comment><USER33> Welshly Arms

</comment><comment><USER34> Lacrimosa

</comment><comment><USER35> eurobeat

</comment><comment><USER36> metal</comment>


Open-Registry – JavaScript Registry Funded+developed by the Community - <AUTHOR> https://open-registry.dev/ <comment><AUTHOR> I know this is a duplicate post [0], but I felt it deserved another chance at getting some discussion going about a community-supported package manager, as an alternative to NPM. Here is the repo: [https://github.com/open- services/open-registry](https://github.com/open-services/open-registry)

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19739872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19739872)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the try lioeters.

I was certain my Show HN (linked above) would generate some interesting and useful discussions around package management and governance, but seems the HN crowd is not picking it up. Project probably needs a bit more meat on it before it's generally interesting. I'll try again in the future :)

<comment><AUTHOR> For what it's worth, I made sure to star the repo and will keep an eye on the project as it grows. Please do repost in the future, perhaps with some blog post update, as I'm interested in a viable NPM alternative.

I've also been looking into verdaccio [0], for a private registry. I thought it might be relevant to list such self-hosted options in the Open Registry site as well (although, the use case is different).

[0] [https://github.com/verdaccio/verdaccio](https://github.com/verdaccio/verdaccio)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Help for a beginner game developer? - <AUTHOR>

Ok, so me and my friend have always been interested in game development and we have started to dedicate some time into it to see if we can actually make a game so we can finally reach one of our goals. We have decided to start out with java and making some mobile games on android and for this I began using Kilobolt's tutorial (http://www.kilobolt.com/game-development-tutorial.html). I'm here to ask for some tips for this new guy here. I'd like to read a good book for introduction or good material on game development for a beginner like me. Which language  would you recommend to move on with after doing a couple of mobile game just for fun? And even though money isn't our priority here, can one make good money out of small game apps? Thank you in advance for your time. <comment><USER2> [https://pay.reddit.com/r/gamedev](https://pay.reddit.com/r/gamedev) is probably a better place for you to look for help.</comment>


Google Earth shows that cow and deer herds align like compass needles - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2008/08/25/google-earth-shows-that-cow-and-deer-herds-align-like-compass-needles/ <comment><USER2> How is there not a single picture of the phenomenon in the article!? We get two junk stock images instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> > One slightly leftfield possibility is that keeping magnetic fields in > symmetry about the axis of your body could affect certain bodily processes. > There are tantalising bits of evidence to back this up – in humans, the time > it takes to drift into REM sleep and the electrical activity in the brain > differs depending on whether we're facing a north-south direction or an > east-west one.

I hadn't heard about this before but this sounds interesting. I wonder much of an effect it has on sleep.

<comment><USER4> Might be a reference to this publication, they recommend North-South over the rest. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280093617_The_Relat...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280093617_The_Relationship_between_Quality_of_Sleep_and_Geographical_Directions_during_Sleeping_Process)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe related: "Extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields disrupt magnetic alignment of ruminants" ([https://www.pnas.org/content/106/14/5708](https://www.pnas.org/content/106/14/5708)) from PNAS in 2009.

</comment><comment><USER6> For the ancient philosophy of vastu shastra humans should sleep with their heads at south and feet towards north for best alignment with earth magnetic forces...

</comment><comment><USER7> 2008

"Now, it's time for others to follow up on her results."

More than 10 years later, does science work? Or is it broken?

This is not a small thing, if it was real, which seems unlikely, perhaps there's similar in humans....</comment>


Three people with inherited diseases successfully treated with CRISPR - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2246020-three-people-with-inherited-diseases-successfully-treated-with-crispr <comment><USER2> It's interesting that they did _not_ just undo the inherited disease. I assumed that, especially with Sickle Cell where we have a good understanding of how it works, they would go into Chromosome 11 and put it back how it "should" be with CRISPR. But instead they apply a workaround, ensuring continued fetal haemoglobin production.

The article does not mention whether that's because putting Chromosome 11 back with CRISPR is harder, or whether for some reason that wouldn't fix the problem.

<comment><USER3> That's also what struck me as odd, but having maintained legacy systems for a long time I can see why it's sometimes preferable to use a proven if inelegant workaround than going in and try to fix the actual defect, especially if you have limited debugging options.

<comment><USER4> Analogies to IT and development aren't that appropriate here tbh.

This isn't a legacy system, if you want to keep the IT analogy this would be failing over to a different system or replacing an existing solution that doesn't work with a competitive alternative rather than fixing all your bugs.

<comment><USER3> This wasn't meant very serious, i'm sorry I couldn't indicate that better. I'm in no way,shape or form qualified to chime in on this topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is such mind-blowing success, it makes me contemplate switching fields. Is it reasonably feasible to switch from IT to Biotech/Medical Research in the mid thirties?

I had a friend with Fukutin-related limb-girdle muscular dystrophy R13 and am wondering if CRISPR could be the solution for her.

<comment><USER5> It's worth knowing there are very few diseases that can be cured with singular gene edits. Many diseases involve multiple genes, cascades of gene expression, or complex physiological pathways. Oh, and not to mention epigenetics and environmental factors.

<comment><USER6> My family has one of the well-known single-site cancer-causing mutations; we know what the specific site is, even. It would be immense to "fix" (I am not a geneticist) that single site. Even just for my kids.

<comment><USER7> Why would you prefer the risks of editing versus the risks of preimplantation screening? Editing would be strictly riskier unless there's really no alternative (unlikely but possible)

<comment><USER6> Preimplantation screening isn't an option for me or any other of my family members who are long past implantation. I'm not saying I'd hop on stage 1 clinical trials of a potential editing cure, and we'd have to see what the data on risk looked like to compare it with the risk from cancer without editing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >The remaining bone marrow cells are killed by chemotherapy, then replaced by the edited cells.

Interesting that they need to kill the remaining bone marrow cells. I wonder what happens when they skip that step. Do the modified cells still reproduce, resulting in a partially effective treatment? Are they targeted by the immune system and eliminated? Are they just out-reproduced by the normal cells and fade into irrelevance?

<comment><USER9> If you don't kill off the existing bone marrow, you end up with a couple problems:

1\. You only give the patient a small number of edited cells. You want those cells to multiply and replace the existing cells. If you don't remove the existing cells, the edited cells aren't going to reproduce very fast because the body has a feedback loop and is saying "we have enough bone marrow cells now, so no need to make more".

2\. Host versus graft disease. The old immune system will attack the new immune system cells.

<comment><USER10> Do these patients have to be revaccinated?

<comment><USER9> I'm not a doctor, but I would say yes, you'd lose any acquired immunity since you kill off all the memory b-cells that store that information.

But you'd also gain the donor's immunity, and if they've been vaccinated, the recipient would have that immunity as well.

<comment><USER11> That is not correct. Trained B cells are predominantly stored in lymph nodes. You also don't gain host immunity by marrow transfer.

<comment><USER10> So B cells are what responsible for learned immunity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Smalll thing, Beta thalassaemia isn't a disease — as far as I know. It's a disorder or a syndrome.

Definition of disease: Resulting from a pathophysiological response to external or internal factors.

Definition of disorder: A disruption of the disease to the normal or regular functions in the body or a part of the body.

Edit: I have it myself (and my kids do too), and I often correct people on this. Since I rather have a disorder than a disease:)

</comment><comment><USER13> Note that this only edits the bone marrow cells, it is totally different from the scandalous experiment on gene editing in human embryos: [https://www.livescience.com/64166-first-genetically- modified...](https://www.livescience.com/64166-first-genetically-modified- babies-risks.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Fetal hemoglobin binds stronger to oxygen than normal hemoglobin, so that a fetus can "steal" oxygen from its mother's blood. But if the mother has been crispred to also have fetal hemoglobin, then this won't work right? Meaning it's a male only treatment?

<comment><USER15> Means that it is a treatment for anyone not able to have children, which is about half of females (post-menopausal, plus other infertilities).

<comment><USER16> Add to that all women willing to give up the ability to have children for the treatment, which might be sizeable

<comment><USER15> Because of accidental pregnancies, there are some treatments denied to all fertile women regardless of choice. Ussually they are those that cause horrible birth defects (limb reductions etc) or make pregnancy deadly to the mother. Given the links between oxygen and injuries like FAS, this hemoglobin treatment may be one of that group.

Example: Acutane was once used to treat acne in teenagers. Many/most doctors didnt give it to teenage girls regardless of whether they were sexually active or on the pill. Mistakes happen. That drug would do horrible things to a fetus.

<comment><USER17> For acne, I support this policy.

For serious conditions like those in the article, forcing sterilization seems real cruel in an age with safe and plentiful abortion.

<comment><USER18> _safe and plentiful abortion_

Not in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like how evolution if you can call it that figured out first that fetal haemoglobin mitigated the problem.

The fix used CRISPR (and a gene engine?) to implement the fix on other people.

It's like version 2 of what human bodies figured out first naturally.

This sounds like something that my dad or other people with COPD/IPF could use. If fetal haemoglobin could grab more oxygen it would benefit people with low lung function. Sort of like Star Trek "Trioxin" they loved to use.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder since fetal hemoglobin has stronger binding with oxygen which means the blood can oxygenate faster if this can be used for other issues as well like reduced lung capacity and performance enhancement.

<comment><USER20> Yes but it also holds onto oxygen more tightly, making it difficult to released to cells that need it. There's no performance enhancement here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm hoping that other then treating diseases this thing can aid with enhancement.

</comment><comment><USER22> But will the drug approval agencies allow genetically engineered therapies for anything disruptive? For example, they've been blocking the caries vaccine for decades.

<comment><USER23> > blocking the caries vaccine for decades

Please give more details.

<comment><USER4> There are no details to give, there never was a successful caries vaccine it's just always been stuck at being worked on.

Big dental isn't blocking it we just don't have a good enough model and yes there isn't a sufficient financial incentive to develop it really either.

Caries isn't a big problem these days, it's not then major cause of tooth problems as people grow older, dental hygiene and more importantly fluoride in water pretty much solved it for those population that were affected.

There is no financial reason to block a caries vaccine as it's not going to have any impact on the industry, cosmetic and corrective procedures would still be just as in demand and gum disease is by far a bigger factor for tooth loss in adult patients than caries.

Not to mention that quite a lot of the "vaccines" weren't traditional vaccines but rather replacement therapies where lacto acid producing bacteria would be replaced with strains that cannot produce it but can outcompete the lactobacillus flora in your mouth, these treatments are let's say problematic since we have had little to no experience in flora replacement therapies and can't predict or model the outcomes well.</comment></comment></comment>


Search Engines as Leeches on the Web (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html

<comment><USER2> Can we flag this as 2006?

Kinda wish he'd posted this somewhere other than somewhere supposedly devoted to making web sites better for _users_.</comment>


Bing.com content is contained within a single table cell - <AUTHOR> http://www.bing.com?1

<comment><USER2> Only on the home page. My CSS-fu is a bit out of date, but I think it has something to do with vertical centering/height 100% fun, which once upon a time was most easily accomplished this way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good catch. I wonder why they chose that approach. They're smart people and I'm sure there's a good reason.</comment>


Gmail search made easier (and lazier) - <AUTHOR> http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-in-labs-gmail-search-made-easier.html <comment><USER2> I just tested the feature and I like it a lot. Any shortcut that I can use to make finding emails a little easier is very welcome.</comment>


We're turning off Clickpass March 15. How to keep your HN account. - <AUTHOR>

We're going to stop supporting Clickpass on March 15.  If you use Clickpass to log in to Hacker News, please<p>(1) put your email address in your profile (no one can see it except you and us), then<p>(2)
change your password by going to http://news.ycombinator.com/changepw. <comment><USER3> The fact that Clickpass even exists made me realize openID was DOA.

I spent a day implementing openID for the users of my website, because I realized, hey, what a cool idea, a URL can represent a single user on the internet, and that user can authenticate against it universally.

The sad truth was that I could not expect a single one of my users to even understand what the hell was going on, because for most test openID accounts I set up on yahoo, etc, I couldn't figure out how to use them. Only the hand- holdy sites exclusively for openid even bothered to tell me what my personal URL was and how to use it.

That was when I realized that Clickpass only exists because the implementation of OpenID was a total pooch screw.

If the OpenID standard had required it be simple, like the URL must follow this template - google.com/openid/kevinms and yahoo.com/openid/kevinms, and the user just pasted this into the box, I think it might have been a success. But because they didn't, and they convoluted it more with the concept of your "unique identity on the internet", you need third party services, which are unnecessary layers that are completely confusing to the user.

<comment><USER4> I always thought that the problem with openID is they didn't use email addresses instead of URLs. e.g. use email@example.com and require a certain url template for the endpoint e.g. example.com/openid/john

That way I don't have to remember another identifier and we already trust at least part of our identity to our email provider. Not perhaps as open, but much more approachable as a user.

<comment><USER5> Hate that idea. I don't want to have to share my email address, in fact that's a primary reason why I always use my open ID (which is unrelated) when possible. Providing email as a credential creates an implicit, if not explicit, invitation "Here, spam me." This is why I'm generally against using email as an identifier.

Other examples that all suck for this reason: Apple IDs. Windows Live ID. Jabber.

<comment><USER6> How do people operate in the 21st Century internet treating their email address as private? I've never been reserved about giving out my email address and I've never had a spam or harassment problem. Ever.

<comment><USER7> Back in "the day", users were bombarded with warnings to never give out their email address, lest something _bad_ happen... at one point in time, if you did post your email publicly, it would quickly become unusable as the spam tools & regulations were _way_ behind the spammers. I'm sure there's still a huge contingent out there afraid of putting their email into the wild.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _(no one can see it except you and us)_

Offtopic, but I used to think that too until a coworker I'd never met emailed me using that address, warning me that apparently the proxy had cached my view of my profile page and he was able to view it. Has this been fixed yet?

<comment><USER9> You mean nobody can see it except you, YC, and the man in the middle?

Your system is setup to ask your corporate proxy to fetch unencrypted pages for you. That proxy may be configured to make a physical printout on your boss's printer of every page you request and there's nothing YC can do about that beyond offering <https://news.ycombinator.com/> for you to use. That, too, may not be sufficient if your company has its own trusted SSL cert installed which is used to proxy and intercept everything so that all your internet activity can be decrypted.

<comment><USER10> <https://news.ycombinator.com/> is available! https HN links come up in Google results (at least from memory).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am one of the co-founders of Clickpass and I think this is a great move.

I wrote the HN code in about 2 days and I was learning lisp/arc so it was awful code (RTM did the openID part) and literally no one has touched Clickpass code for 2.5 years. The fact that it still works is always surprising to me :).

Also I think Oauth beat OpenID hands down.

<comment><USER12> Did you mean "no one has touched the code in 2.5 years?" If so, then that is indeed, surprising.

And yes, OAuth did beat OpenID, but they're not really the same kind of thing.

<comment><USER11> I know, but for all intents and purposes OAuth ended up being a super set of OpenID.

\--- corrected years

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Immad's already weighed in on this but as the other Clickpass co-founder I also support this decision.

OAuth has definitely trumped OpenID as a protocol but turning off Clickpass shouldn't be seen as a reflection on either protocol and is simply removing a dependency on unsupported and remotely hosted code.

Immad did an incredible job of writing code that has run and run however since acquisition there is minimal and subsequently no support behind the codebase.

I would like to thank both PG and the users of Clickpass here who have been such ardent supporters of it over the years. We tried hard to make it attractive to developers and we received a lot of support for that - <USER2> you.

</comment><comment><USER14> A suggestion: please have users input their new password twice to catch typos.

</comment><comment><USER15> Any particular reason for the change? (Just curious)

</comment><comment><USER16> While we're on this topic, can you add a note to the profile page that says that email isn't publicly visible? This seems to be a common source of confusion.

<comment><USER17> There's already a bright yellow box that informs you about that, but it only shows when the e-mail field is empty.

<comment><USER16> Hmm, okay. It still seems that people are often confused by this, though.

<comment><USER17> I'd lean towards a check box with 'make e-mail address visible (to registered users)'. That way you get the implicit message that it's invisible by default and can share it if you like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would love an overview of why you're moving away from using Clickpass...

Clearly people are using it (given this message), and as many of us are web developers, the thought process behind this decision would be potentially very interesting.

Do you plan to move to a different system (FB Connect/Twitter/Google Identity Toolkit), or are you happy with a standard username/password model?

Are too many people joining HN and you simply want to add some friction to the process?!

Also, clickpass will need to update their site:

<http://www.clickpass.com/docs/where-you-can-use-clickpass>

</comment><comment><USER19> PSA:

Putting your email address in your profile is important. I once used to be "rb2k", but then I forgot the password I used back then and ended up as "rb2k_". There is no way to reset the password on an account if you're not adding an email :(

</comment><comment><USER20> Are there any plans for BrowserID auth, perhaps?

<comment><USER21> Yes! Please please please implement BrowserId. This is the one authentication/login system that actually has a real fighting chance. We've implemented it for our site (next to FB login) and we are really happy with it.

<comment><USER22> Could you explain why? When I last looked, a crucial component wasn't specced, meaning you had to rely on Mozilla for part of the handshake. Have things change?

<comment><USER21> Why what? Why we are happy with it? It is easy to implement and the people creating it are smart. They've done a good job so far, I see no reason why it won't be successful in the future.

The browser integration will be amazing when its ready, but until then, it is the closest thing to FB auth without requiring FB or people to give up their friends list or other information they are concerned about.

I'm not sure what 'crucial component' you are talking about, but we are just using browserid.org.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When a tech-audience orientated website like HN stops using OpenID, I think we can say that OpenID is firmly dead.

Sad, I think HN was one of my last consumers of my OpenID account.

<comment><USER24> I really like using OpenID on StackExchange sites. I just click the "Google" button and I'm logged in!

What's funny to me is how many sites rushed to be OpenID providers, but there were not very many consumers. I tried counting once but I lost count at 15 OpenID accounts that I have from various sites. So much for single sign-on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is there a blog post associated with this decision somewhere? Is my scenario of logging in with a Google account that uncommon?

(just FYI, until this decision, HN had the most seamless signup procedure I've ever encountered on a website)

</comment><comment><USER26> I've never heard of Clickpass, what is it?

<comment><USER27> Bringing OpenID To The Masses: Clickpass

[http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/11/clickpass-could-change- the-...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/11/clickpass-could-change-the-way-you- surf-the-web/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is the reason behind stop supporting it?

</comment><comment><USER29> Boo, give me OpenID back! Or at least don't do password reset via HTTP.

<comment><USER6> > Or at least don't do password reset via HTTP.

Huh?

<comment><USER30> Use HTTPS for password reset, not (unencrypted) HTTP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How will you let others know once this falls off the front page?

</comment><comment><USER32> Since notifo is shutting down are you going to remove that?

<comment><USER33> Is there a standard to support web callbacks (or whatever they're called)? I wouldn't mind hooking up HN to Prowl, since that's what I did with Notifo anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> _crosses fingers_ scribd next, right?

</comment><comment><USER35> https link would be nice, unless I misunderstood what was happening there, my password went out in the clear.

<comment><USER36> <https://news.ycombinator.com/changepw> works just fine actually, even though pg apparently forgot to put the 's' in the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'd like it if you could still support openID. It's still very useful despite it's flaws.

</comment><comment><USER38> It might be a good idea to make this a "sticky post", and keep it in the top 10 until March 15 (or 16th). Maybe even automagically move it up the closer we get to March 15th.

</comment><comment><USER39> I just followed the steps, but I'm getting a "Bad login." message when I try to sign in using Chrome's incognito mode. How long before the new username/password combo works?

<comment><AUTHOR> It should work immediately. So either you mistyped something or incognito mode does something that breaks login.

<comment><USER40> I can't see it being the latter. I've used incognito mode to test logins for web development and there's nothing out of the ordinary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Something in line of clickpass is good. It saves people from making hundreds of accounts and same passwords for many sites.

</comment><comment><USER42> Thanks. Big win for user security on the Internet.

<comment><USER43> How so?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Obviously, many people would like to know why this is being done, if not for matters of convenience, for curiosity.</comment>


Balckbox iOS game - <AUTHOR> http://blackboxpuzzles.com <comment><AUTHOR> There is a challenge in this game where you must open your first (leftmost) dock app and return to the game to complete. Any ideias on how it's getting the information from the system on which app you have opened?</comment>


Quibi Will Be a Multi-Billion Dollar Company - <AUTHOR> https://divinations.substack.com/p/quibi-will-be-a-multi-billion-dollar <comment><USER2> There is a complete lack of logic in the conclusions under the "How the next year will play out" header. We are going into a global recession and another "premium" video streaming service is not what the market is asking for. I feel bad for anyone who invested in this, but that feeling is somewhat limited considering what an extremely basic sales pitch they must've got sold on.

<comment><USER3> Author here! The entire piece contains the logic that supports the conclusion at the end. You're right that the recession will hurt them, but on balance, I think in the long run the premium short-form video format will be here to stay.

<comment><USER2> So is espresso, that doesn't mean a new café taking on Starbucks is going to succeed.</comment></comment></comment>


The new iPod touch. Fun at full speed - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/ipod-touch/ <comment><USER2> $199 for 32 GB.

"Available space is less and varies due to many factors. A standard configuration uses approximately 10GB to 12GB of space (including iOS and preinstalled apps) depending on the model and settings. Preinstalled apps use about 4GB, and you can delete these apps and restore them."

As someone hobbling by with a 16 GB iPhone 6, even 32 GB seems ... low.

</comment><comment><USER3> A10 in SE form factor, I'd say this bodes well for an SE replacement.

<comment><USER4> Hmm, that's interesting. Apart from phone calls, can this do everything an iphone can? Including facetime audio, imessage, etc

I've been considering a secondary office phone that I would use during the workday. Or conversely, a secondary device for distracting ios apps: IG, twitter, reddit, etc

Can't or don't want to stop using them, but I dislike having them on my work device. (Main phone)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Typical Apple. Do they really expect someone to pay a whopping 200 for a device that you can't even make calls on or type on (I have one of these things lying around, and trying to type on that screen is a nightmare)?</comment>


Facebook Building 8 explored data sharing agreement with hospitals - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/facebook-building-8-explored-data-sharing-agreement-with-hospitals.html <comment><USER2> Just quit today! For numerous reasons. Not just this. Do you need another reason?

</comment><comment><USER3> It should be pretty clear to everyone by now that FB's leadership has complete lack of ethics and moral values. This company needs to die very quickly.

Why would anyone want to work for such a scummy company? Seriously?

<comment><USER4> I'm reconsidering it every day, believe me.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for saying that and I believe you. If significant number of employees left FB, it would fold as it should.

<comment><USER5> You can say that about any company. But:

 _Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gets a $700,000 base salary, CFO David Wehner makes $650,000, and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox earns $625,000 as does CTO Mike Schroepfer._

I highly doubt you will ever have problem finding programmers or staf in general for even 40% of their salary.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/it-costs-5m-to-keep-zuckerberg- saf...](https://www.cnet.com/news/it-costs-5m-to-keep-zuckerberg-safe-and- four-other-things-we-learned-from-facebook/)

<comment><USER6> Legitimate question: Are their processes/procedures/direction so well documented a brand new crew could just pick right up where the current folks left off?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amazing, how much low they can go? You have to wonder what is next...

</comment><comment><USER8> That's crazy. I think Facebook grew so fast, some people are bored so they look for crazy stuff to do.... Wondering if the CEO knows about these things? We might know more soon during the CA hearings.

</comment><comment><USER9> Some analysts think this may actually be a "good thing" for FB long-term.

They are "salivating" at the lower priced FB shares.

Large cash reserves, no debt and superior competitive positioning.

Are they missing anything?

Source:

[https://seekingalpha.com/article/4161213-facebook- concerns-o...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4161213-facebook-concerns- overdone)</comment>


TeamViewer users are being hacked in bulk, and we still don't know how - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2016/06/teamviewer-users-hacked-but-how/ <comment><USER2> Maybe I have 2 factor authentication set up wrong or am missing something but here is what I have just noticed.

I ran teamviewer on 2 computers.

The teamviewer windows appear.

On neither instance do I log into my teamviewer account, so I don't enter my account password and therefore I don't enter a 2FA code from my phone.

However I can still open a session from one computer to the other using either the random password or the stored computer-specific password.

So how exactly does 2FA increase my protection from the alleged scam?

<comment><USER3> The 2FA authentication is only useful if you whitelist your account. The default settings, just as you mentioned, allow anyone to access your computer should they somehow guess the random password.

My guess is that the hackers have found a way to acquire these random passwords, or are simply brute forcing them on a massive scale and we're seeing reports of the minority of successes.

<comment><USER2> Thanks I get it now. It would be interesting to know if the chap who reported being connected to, with 2FA on, had restricted access via the whitelist or had left it the way mine was. I suspect the latter.

However I am so paranoid at the moment that I have decided to exit teamviewer completely between uses until this all blows over.

EDIT: In the comments below the linked article is the best explanation yet in my opinion:

>They sign into the website/client with the compromised credentials, and get a list of what computers are online and waiting for connections from that account.

[http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/teamviewer-users- are...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/teamviewer-users-are-being- hacked-in-bulk-and-we-still-dont-know- how/?comments=1&post=31311071&mode=quote)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know what to make of this. Is TeamViewer looking into this? They seem to have immediately dismissed this as people with weak passwords without any indication that any kind of investigation was performed. Is this because they feel they are unhackable so these incidents are not worthy of investigation? Are they looking into it?

The fact that all of these questions are up in the air means that I really have no choice but to quit using the product. I don't do a lot of remote support with other people but do need to access different computers of my own (that are in different locations) at certain times. Before TeamViewer I would use Hamachi + VNC which worked fine with the exception that Hamachi always goes into "relay mode" when I am not on a very good connection, which was always a joy to find out when I was on vacation and was unable to access anything because all of the nodes were connected in "relay mode".

Someone else here mentioned ZeroTier as an hamachi alternative, so I think I will give that a try. A longer term goal is to link the machines together using OpenVPN, which I am not currently an expert in.

</comment><comment><USER5> Initial Hacker News discussion, mainly for the top comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826431)

I am not an expert. The top comment helped me assess the risk.

<comment><USER6> Of course but if I've learned anything from camping is to always prepare for the worst weather possible. Very smart to treat this as TV getting hacked versus simple password re-use due to the nature of money being taken from victims.

This is also why I'm glad I've never used the accounts for TV and have always resorted to the number generating system (if of course the breach is related directly to the accounts)

<comment><USER7> Make sure you have the number generation on the more secure option. I'm still using the accounts but only my machines are whitelisted to connect to each other, plus I turned on 2FA. The next step may be to turn it on to LAN-only mode and get my VPN working properly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Teamviewer account is required to access another computer without someone being there [1]. When you're helping a friend or demoing to a customer, they're there to start their teamviewer and give you the access code. There is no need for accounts if those are all your use cases and there is no risk to be attacked without an account, is that correct?

[1] [https://www.teamviewer.com/en/help/410-what-is-a- teamviewer-...](https://www.teamviewer.com/en/help/410-what-is-a-teamviewer- account-and-how-do-i-sign-up-for-one)

<comment><USER9> The access code is probably generated server-side and can be snooped.

<comment><USER6> If you read the article they tell you the most likely situation is the fact that millions of passwords are leaked everyday attached to emails in various data breaches.

This breach could also be data leaked from TeamViewer but as of right now there has been no official word as far as I can see. Considering users like to use the same username and password a bot could easily run through a leaked list and report any successful logins back to an attacker (an older exploit).

As far as I can tell the random numbers being generated are not affected but users who have actual accounts are being affected. There has been no official word but the number generating system being exploited over the accounts being exploited seems far less likely. Only time will tell thought so hopefully we will get an official word soon!

 _edit_ Seeing a lot of different theories in the comments and honestly I'm not sure which one makes the best sense. I really do hope TV makes a comment soon about how it's happening but we probably won't see that announcement until they release the fixes which are supposedly later this year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They did report DNS issues, it could be that someone hijacked their domain/DNS and set up a fake authentication server. From there the possibilities are endless. [0] jumps to mind

0.[https://github.com/AlessandroZ/LaZagne](https://github.com/AlessandroZ/LaZagne)

<comment><USER11> They reported a DDoS attack on their DNS servers, I'm not sure how you draw a connection between that and a DNS hijack.

Especially considering such hijack would've in all likelihood been logged.

<comment><USER10> I didn't say it happened, I said it could have happened. It's just a hypothesis since the article said the origin of the hacks is unknown.

<comment><USER12> I have heard reports of the DNS server responding with a Chinese IP address.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure they've had a Hong Kong endpoint in the past

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading more into this I really do wonder if this is related to other companies being hacked. If you look at this Reddit thread [https://www.reddit.com/r/teamviewer/comments/4m6omd/teamview...](https://www.reddit.com/r/teamviewer/comments/4m6omd/teamviewer_breach_masterthread_please_post_your/)

search "Do you have a TV Account" I have yet to find an answer from someone that said No (meaning they use the numbering system- only yes, used to and "free" which still is a login). A lot of answers to include that they use the same password for the same email for various accounts. A few that don't but those numbers are very small and more than likely that user was compromised another way.

 _edit_ Of course this is speculation and as mentioned in the original post of this article we should assume this was TV being hacked versus just a simple re-used password

</comment><comment><USER13> "we still don't know how." No one is stating the obvious: we would know more if we had the source code.

<comment><USER14> We would know more, but we wouldn't necessarily have an answer.

Reading the source code we cannot be sure that some vulnerable software was not updated quickly enough on some production system of theirs, or say anything about DNS poising etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Happened to my friend about 3 weeks ago and he's a fairy savvy computer user. Had 5k extracted from PayPal which has just been recovered. All my friends have now uninstalled team viewer if they had it installed.

<comment><USER6> Did you friend use the login system or the auto-number login generator?

<comment><USER15> He said login. TeamViewer was always logged in and running in the background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It might be related to the fact that too many TV users usually send their id+password in one single clear-text email.

<comment><USER2> Very good point. I've seen that.

Or a piece of malware that checks if teamviewer is running (or maybe even opens it), reads the id and password from the window and sends those home

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Disabled my teamviewer. Relying on zerotier + remote desktop

<comment><USER18> I was going to suggest the same thing. ZeroTier has been an absolute dream in eliminating the necessity for traditional gatekeeper services like TeamViewer or Hamachi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Whenever I install Teamviwer I don't install it as a startup service - If I have to remote into someones' computer, I want them to initiate the connection process so they know what's going on.

</comment><comment><USER20> Ugh! I use Team Viewer to take care of family computers. Is there a good alternative on Macs behind NAT?

<comment><USER21> iMessage (via Messages.app) has remote control/screensharing built-in :)

<comment><USER22> And, unfortunately, like other Apple services (like Back to my Mac), it suffers from access to computers behind routers.

<comment><USER23> Computers behind routers? So... all internet connected computers then?

I use Back to my Mac from work all the time and I have no problem accessing my iMac at home from my MacBook Pro at work.

<comment><USER22> Actually, yes. I used to be an Apple Genius and whenever we dealt with two machines on separate LANs, that required NAT, there were so many problems with traversing the routers. We had to do manual setups with port forwarding or DMZ. Facetime seems have significantly improved with this (but was awful when it was iChat w/ Group Video chats), but Back to My Mac is still very problematic-- you can see this issue also by trying to Screen Share over iMessage to other people. In my experience it only has about a 50% success rate.

My home setup still doesn't work with Back to My Mac (and hasn't for years).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Its pretty shocking that its still available for download.

<comment><USER25> It's a private equity owned business. They paid around $600m for it. They're not going to take anything down.

<comment><USER24> They would if they wanted to preserve its image going forward. I actually need a remote tool to help my parents & was planning on downloading TV. Guess not...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> teamviewer is constantly connected even when you turn it off connected to server pretty much a complete tunnel through any firewall. run vnc in server mode not as a service and map the ports through and use non standard ports none of these tunnel setup logme in type remote desktop desktop viewers.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is this for real?

<comment><USER12> It seems team viewer is doing the "Deny, Deny, Deny" thing.

<comment><USER28> Playing the devil's advocate here, but what do you think they should be doing, in case these are a result of password re-use and similar user errors?

<comment><USER26> Hard to say or prove that changing your password actually protects you. best method to avoid is to not have it running. Like I mentioned before when you run something that uses a server to tunnel through your firewalls you have to feel this server is trusted. i do not trust a server I rather run a desktop sharing tool like uvnc and control when it is on and off and have no unknown party tunnel .

In the end when I was asked to install teamviewer (I use Linux BTW) I could see all thr process even after I turned it off. i would find myself killing off the 3 or so process that maintained a connection to a server. Heck i get alot of I am silly and its secure. Now I have not had anything happen to me and yet to see anyone beyond stories online. Do not take my word for it run a debugger or trace it wireshark do what you will you will get a suprise. sorta like when I ran skype in linux and traced what it accessed (scary stuff)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does Netflix Know Javascript? - <AUTHOR> http://joshpowell.ulitzer.com/node/1213870

<comment><USER2> The title is "Does Netflix Know Javascript?" (i.e. implying they don't), then he writes:

"Overall, I have to give the netflix site an A- in the way they handle their javascript/css. The do almost everything right, and are strongly optimized. It's a site done well, much better then 90% of the websites out there, even large well known ones. My hats off to the developers."

...

</comment><comment><USER3> jeez i wish someone could comb through my site with this much detail for free too.</comment>


Posterous (YC S08) raises ~4.4M from Redpoint, Trinity, and angels - <AUTHOR> http://blog.posterous.com/posterous-raises-44m-from-redpoint-ventures-t

<comment><USER2> Congrats! My interview with Garry Tan (founder) from three days ago: [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/garry-tan-on- get...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/garry-tan-on-getting- traction.html)

I'm interviewing Satish Dharmaraj (lead investor) on Monday. These interviews are on getting traction.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm trying posterous right now for the first time.

First impressions:

* It got the possessive of my name, Peteris, wrong. If the name ends in -is (or -us), the possessive is Peteris' not "Peteris's posterous". (Rule 1 from "The Elements of Style".)

* I am not sure why it needed me to validate my email, if I already sent the first mail from my mail and then signed up via the URL in the mail that came back. But it wasn't difficult so ok.

* Regging was really quick. Quickest I have ever had.

* Had a dot in the first post's title, it got deleted in the URL. Would have liked if it was rather replaced by a dash.

I like it overall. I am not going to use it actively as I already have a blog but I would if I hadn't as it gets you blogging in no time.

<comment><USER4> The possessive thing actually varies according to stylebooks. The _Chicago Manual of Style_ says to use 's in this circumstance (doesn't fall into one of its exceptions for when to omit the 2nd s), and the _MLA Handbook_ says to always use 's for possessives of singular nouns.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I see. Didn't know that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does Posterous make money?

<comment><USER6> It is such a cool service that VCs will keep it free forever!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> At first I was very skeptical. Who needs another blogging platform (tumblr works fine, thank you).

But now that I'm on the road, Posterous does have one big advantage: It works _offline_ too. I use Mail.app to write and when I finally get a reliable connection -- it automatically uploads the new post.

Great work. Thanks guys!

</comment><comment><USER8> Why do they need such money?

<comment><USER9> Build more stuff, Marketing, Back office support. Poking around with what you could do with email would be constructive. They nailed down email to blogs going so how about the other way around. For example, I'm starting to get a lot of magazines sent to me by email and I want them somewhere else so how about picking them up from email and placed to a magazine folder on the desktop automatically. Click on the magazine folder object sends you to the article.

<comment><USER10> Excellent idea. Would love that feature for the tons of email magazines I subscribe to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love Posterous and post something there every day. Huge congrats!

</comment><comment><USER12> Who says email is dead?

Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER13> Huge congrats to the Posterous team. I'm a total convert after I started to use posterous to keep track of Startup related news in the Mission District in SF. Absolutely love the simplicity of the experience and can't wait to see what's next.

</comment><comment><USER14> Congrats! Amazing how they continue to crank out new features

</comment><comment><USER15> w00t! Congrats guys!

</comment><comment><USER16> Notes On Posterous Founder <http://mixergynotes.com/sachin-agarwal-posterous/>

</comment><comment><USER17> WIN</comment>


Cryptography for genetic material (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/30/157685 <comment><AUTHOR> There is more on this, to be released here with sufficient interest or to be shared with interested parties...</comment>


Why Apple Should Grab Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/03/why-apple-should-grab-twitter/

<comment><USER2> So the TL;DR version of the article is "so Apple can become a player in social" but it never address the question as to whether that's actually something that Apple would want to / need to do.

To me this move would suck of Microsoft buying Hotmail, or getting into search or Messenger or any one of the things they go into when the internet started booming and they worried that they were getting left behind. And what's happened since? Microsoft have lost money hand over fist on them with little genuine strategic gain other than saying that they were in those spaces.

Social is a pretty rapidly evolving space at the moment but other than Facebook is anyone really making money there? Google have made several plays with limited success, Twitter is interesting but has an unclear business model and most of the social start ups range from the uninspiring to the niche to the sort of thing that Facebook is just going to copy and crush if it takes off.

And even Facebook, anecdotally at least, seems to be getting tired. I hear so many people talking of irritation with it, drifting away, even closing accounts. The figures continue to show growth but among the sort of people who were early adopters I'm personally seeing a complete lack of engagement with it.

So yes, it would make Apple a player in social but really, is that something they want?

In terms of keeping it out of the hands of Google or Facebook or whoever, if you think it's a good acquisition, you should buy it because of that. If you think it's a bad acquisition then you shouldn't care, in fact you should probably want them to buy it to have them waste a billion dollars.

Oh, and I loved the idea "they fix Ping and monitize it". Is it just me or is this MBA speak for "Buy Twitter, ?????, PROFIT!!!".

<comment><USER3> I think you're right. Twitter is not profitable. Apple shouldn't buy it in its current state... But maybe in a few years, if Twitter is on the brink of bankruptcy, Apple might be able to acquire it for much less. And in the meantime, Apple still has all the benefits of their strategic partnership as is currently stands.

<comment><USER2> If it were really on the verge of bankruptcy would it be attractive? That would pretty much indicate that it had failed as a venture so why would Apple want it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > No, I am not suggesting Apple buy Facebook. (Zuckerberg has his own path to > travel, and it does not go through Cupertino).

Who is this guy? Yoda? Or Nostradamus?

</comment><comment><USER5> Ritholtz doesn't say it, but I would add "and then they should put Jack Dorsey on the fast track to CEO."

Dorsey's one of the few CEOs out there who looks like he could be the next Jobs. I'm not saying he's ready to run Apple yet - but it might not take long before he is.

</comment><comment><USER6> Honest question: How can Facebook compete with Apple?

<comment><USER7> I have the same question.

I don't see buying Twitter as being very useful to Apple. Just because Apple, Google and Facebook are 3 of the largest tech giants at the moment doesn't mean they directly compete.

What's more, if the assumption is that Apple isn't very good at social, then the only thing they achieve by acquiring Twitter is to suddenly make themselves a straight competitor in a field where they have little expertise.

I don't see it making sense, but maybe I'm just being shortsighted :)

<comment><USER8> Seems their expertise is being measured by ping and the fact that it's not fb sized or twitter sized.

How does twitter fit with their products and strategy? It just seems sort of expensive when they can partner with those companies and have most of the same benefits

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lets not forget that Apple already owns three of the most popular social "Apps"

\- iMessage

\- Phone

\- Mail

Because they come stock on the device, they don't show up on leaderboards or get called out on user numbers, but is there any doubt that those would be the three most used apps if they were?

iMessage especially has a chance to eclipse Twitter if Apple continues to build it out. If you define social as asymmetrical social web services Apple absolutely doesn't get it. If you count actual conversations, text and media messages, and long form emails/letters, they seem to be doing alright.

<comment><USER10> Apple doesn't own phone calls or email. They have apps for them, like they have an app for twitter.

<comment><USER11> Apple owns iMessages, which might be more important than any other IM network soon, and are already pretty widely used. It wouldn't be too hard to own phone calls the same way (a truly seamless g.722 voice call over lte and wifi would be great. I hate the audio quality of anything but wideband, especially gsm. Plus conference calling and routing features to put google voice to shame)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That would be horrible for twitter. The thought of putting such a revolutionary communication product under the control of one of the most secretive and unresponsive companies around makes me shudder.

<comment><USER13> Unresponsive to what? Their results suggest that they are making things people want.

<comment><USER12> Unresponsive to user feedback and complaints. Nowadays you can't even hope for a random Steve Jobs email.

<comment><USER2> Unresponsive to some feedback and complaints, however the fact that the iPhone and Mac have industry leading customer satisfaction figures suggest that they're doing something right in this area.

The correct response to a customer asking or complaining about something isn't always to do exactly what they ask. To do so may impact on something that everyone else who is currently being quiet values in it's current form.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Sure, iTunes software is terrific"

It is? I don't use it, I find it too be to heavy.

<comment><USER15> Too heavy for what? Playing music? Sure, yeah it's way too heavy for just that. You have to consider all of its functionality and why it was made though.

Movies, music, podcasts, radio, TV, device syncing, iTunes store...etc.

Terrific I guess is a subjective thing, but considering what the software does for so many people that want/need to use it, I'd say that it HAS to be terrific.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd be interested in seeing what the acquisition would do to apple's stock price</comment>


Ask HN: Great intro books for web design/graphic design? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I suck at design, i can't for the life of me figure out which 4 colors work well together, and how to put them together. Is there any definitive design books to read to figure out these questions? Such as SICP in Computer Science.
Thanks a lot!
Jason <comment><USER2> I recommend checking out 'universal principles of design' and o'reillys 'designing web navigation'. These two will give you a good overview of different aspects of design while helping you understand how design works on the web. I think that in starting to learn about all of this, it would be advantageous to approach things from an 'information' angle. That is, web design is information first and aesthetics second.

Beyond that 'A Designer's Research Manual' is well worth reading.

And for colors check out <http://www.colourlovers.com>

<comment><USER3> > web design is information first and aesthetics second

Agreed, though bad aesthetics can/will destroy any value the user assigns to your information. Edward Tufte's books are good. <http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi>. He also has some recommendations (<http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/bookreviews>) and the works of others that he cites are usually also excellent.

The cheap version is to just read through the Ask ET forum on his site.

One that is harder to come across: Josef Albers "Interaction of Color": [http://www.yalebooks.co.uk/yale/display.asp?isb=0300115954&#...

<comment><USER2> Have never heard of 'Interaction of Color'. I'll need to hunt that one down, thanks for the recommendation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think it's the SICP of Design but the non-designers design book is a good terse book of design for us CS folk. Though for strict design and not aesthetics the "universal principals of design" should serve well.

<comment><USER5> Best intro-to-design book I've seen. Just to clarify, that's "The Non- Designer's Design Book" by Robin Williams (not the comedian).</comment></comment>


Show HN: NeuralDraw, an AI-powered speed-drawing game, on your iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://apps.apple.com/app/neural-draw/id1440577395 <comment><USER2> suggest 'on your iPhone' if it is not also available on the Android platform.</comment>


How Did Israel Become "Start-Up Nation"? - <AUTHOR> http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/12/04/how-did-israel-become-start-up-nation/ <comment><USER3> "...attract[s] more venture capital dollars per person than any country — 2.5 times the U.S., 30 times Europe, 80 times India, and 300 times China."

Guh, could we stop it already with the country-level statistics? Per capita or not, you can't just go comparing a largely urban nation of 7.1 million people with massive nation-states like the US, EU, India & China which have huge rural/agrarian areas. How do you think this would read if he had compared it to the venture dollars per capita for the 7.15 million people living in the bay area?

<comment><USER4> Exactly. These phenomena are notoriously non-linear.

IMHO, the best way to calculate a good index is to model (usually log- transformed) the relationship between the venture capital dollars and the population (or overall investment, number of degree awarded by year, money invested in R&D, etc.), then take the ratio between the expected value and observed value. The resulting index is less sensible to scale issues.

<comment><USER5> There is an index that tries to measure innovation called the Global Innovation Index ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index_%28INSE...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index_%28INSEAD%29)), interestingly Israel comes in at 14th, you'd think they would be number one if this article is to be believed.

<comment><USER6> By that same logic, you would say that Israel innovates more than the US since it appears below Israel on that list.

<comment><USER5> What logic? What are you talking about? The US is above Israel on every sub- index. Besides it is obvious that it is relative to population because in absolute terms the US would far outstrip any competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At least without the context of the book, the bit about military service seems like a post facto justification. Had Israel not developed a significant tech sector, I would not be surprised to hear compulsory military service given as a reason for that.

"Compulsory military service teaches young Israelis that they should follow orders instead of thinking for themselves. It promotes a narrow and aggressive world view that sees everything in black and white, friend or enemy, right or wrong. It takes Israelis out of the commercial world at just the time where they are their most innovative.", etc.

Compulsory military service could help the tech sector, or harm it, or not affect it. By considering only the evidence supporting the claim that military service helps, the article leaves open an unknown amount of counter-evidence.

</comment><comment><USER8> Israel and Korea share many things in common. Yet, Israel has become one of the hottest country for startups. The author attributes the success to leadership and technology training in military. I'd say the biggest reason is immigrants.

It's just like mutation and evolution. I truly believe growth in homogeneous society will be severely limited. When you mix different ideas and perspectives together, you get stronger outcome.

Good for them!

<comment><USER9> So why the comparison to Korea? Korea has very restrictive immigration policies which prevent almost anyone from gaining actual permanent residency (citizenship is almost impossible for "non-Koreans"). Israel has very liberal immigration and easy access to citizenship. Israel is democratic and has been mostly free since its founding whereas Korea has had a few dictatorships (and serious military crackdowns on civilian freedom).

The main reason Korea isn't a startup hub is capital. Korean banks are incredibly conservative, they won't even lend money for cars or mortgages to most people. Capital is centralized and mainly allocated to existing projects or proven corporate models. Venture capital is non existent. Israel is the opposite of that with lots of investment and decentralized capital. In short, Israel has risk seeking investors, Korea doesn't.

When no one takes even low to moderate risks with money there cannot be a startup boom.

<comment><USER10> I've been under the impression that Israel only has liberal immigration for certain demographics. Is this not the case?

<comment><USER11> I would say it is the case.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return> \- Allows almost any Jew or relative of a Jew to migrate to Israel and quickly gain citizenship.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Isra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Israel_Law) \- prevents residents of Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and areas governed by the Palestinian Authority from automatically gaining residency and citizenship through family reunion and marriage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A lot of people seem to be distracted by the emphasis on the military - <USER2> in mind that the authors predicate that causation on the specific culture of the Israeli military.

In the book, they compare Israel to other countries with universal, long-term conscription (such as South Korea and Singapore) which, while economically very successful, have not had start-up success. They ascribe this to the fact that the IDF in particular and Israeli society in general tend to disregard hierarchy and encourage challenges to authority.

If the army's culture were different, its effects on the Israeli start-up scene would likely not be positive.

<comment><USER13> I've done 7 months of consequences for disregard for authority before getting kicked out. You shouldn't say these things about the IDF, as in my and many hundreds of young men I've met in the reformatories experience they aren't true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> mleh, begging the question. the article is just a book review and interview with the authors.

<comment><USER15> Kudos for using _begging the question_ correctly, rather than the popular usage as another way of saying _raising the question_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have heard statistics but do not have a source that the university system in isreal is better positioned to perform tech transfer. The US schools are more focused on research reports where as Israeli schools are more focused on selling and building technology.

This is evidenced by the type of start up out of Israel which is patent style tech over social, web tech.

There are US schools pushing to potentially reward professors not just for research but also selling technology.

<comment><USER17> The reason that Israeli schools and American schools differ, stem from the fact that originally, Israel needed fast results.

in 1948, Israel started getting boat loads of Jewish immigrants (a lot of them just out of the holocaust and uneducated). Additionally they were at war and trying to build a country fast. So instead of going for liberal arts and such, the college education is much more direct and to the point. So after 3-4 years, these people can go out and help the new county.

This is also seen in the fact that majors are picked in High School also, to further pinpoint what you are going to do for the society, and then get it done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The weather and the women had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.

<comment><USER19> If that's the case why aren't Miami or San Diego big tech startup hotspots?

<comment><USER20> Uhm, what?

The entire modern biotech lab was practically founded in San Diego. Qualcomm was founded there.

It might as well be Biotech Valley. There are over 400 relevant biotech companies located there.

<comment><USER21> So I guess cold weather attracts Financial Institutions/MBAs? I guess that explains NYC? /sarcasm

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've read that book, and i can say for sure, its a very worthy read indeed. There are some serious eye openers in there that just cant be covered in a blog post or executive summary.

</comment><comment><USER23> Countries with small populations are likely to have higher variance than countries with large populations.

We often look at the most "successful" small countries and try to deduce causal effects, when it could just as easily be simply that they're small.

Israel's success with 7 million citizens hasn't been compared with the success of Tajikistan, Serbia, Papua New Guinea ...

<comment><USER24> Countries with smaller populations would naturally exhibit a larger variance than larger countries that would tend to clump toward the middle. However, no one would say it's just the luck of the draw that papua new guinea is a undeveloped backwater and sitzerland is the center of global banking. With Papua New Guinea for example, I'd imagine that a history of colonial exploitation and lack of contact with the outside world resulted in its present circumstance. Switzerland's tight cultural and economic integration with the rest of europe while staying politically neutral probably greatly contributed to it's current situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What did I just read?! Some facts:

\- How can you compare venture money per capita with China, India, US etc.?! What kind of logic is this?!

\- Yes it's true that they got more venture capitals than other countries, but why? Because hey made kick-ass startups?! Where are these startups? They got because of Jews living outside of Israel invest too much money there. This doesn't mean that they are a startup nation. For example Kuwait invests thousand times more than Israel on national startups but this doesn't mean that they are genius.

\- Actually they get daily aid of 8-10 million dollar from only US an Germany. Do you call this aid venture capital?!

<comment><USER12> For an economy that produces $217 Billion annually, $3 Billion annual military aid is chump change - especially when 75% of that aid is composed of credits that must be spent on American products. So the actual fiscal stimulus from the US amounts to a grand total of about $600 million per year, or about .27% of GDP (no, that decimal point is not a typo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> what are the successful startups in Israel?

</comment><comment><USER27> tl;dr; 2009.

</comment><comment><USER28> Apartheid doesn't seem to slow them down.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is also ignoring the fact that Israel basically owns the US Government with their sympathetic policies and billions of dollars we send them every year.

The article makes it seem like Israelis have balls and that's why they are successful. While its true they have balls, Israel wouldn't even EXIST if it wasn't for US foreign policy.

<comment><USER30> And half the technology you and I use everyday would not EXIST if there was no Israel. If you like, you could think of Israel as a global R&D facility.

<comment><USER5> > half the technology you and I use everyday would not EXIST if there was no > Israel.

Could you back this up?

<comment><USER31> I am sure not "half" and not "would not exist". This article gives a good tldr of Israel: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Israe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Israel#Computer_engineering)</comment></comment></comment></comment>