Gates Still Working Behind the Scenes at Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://redmondmag.com/blogs/scott-bekker/2018/10/gates-behind-the-scenes-at-microsoft.aspx?m=1 <comment><USER2> The primary advantage is not any kind of architectural wisdom or specific knowledge, although that may be the case in some instances.

1) Having the 'magic of the founder' in place is worth a lot. Imagine young Engineers getting to sit on meetings with 'the World's Once Richest Man', world renowned, influential, 'powerful', and the 'creator' of their initiative. It's like a celebrity who is paying attention to you and is meaningfully participating in something you are doing. You'd never forget that meeting. It's exciting and inspiring, and adds meaning or resonance to what you do. It's like being a little bit a party of mythology and gives emotional impetus to the original 'raison d'etre' of the company.

2) Satya can use Bill (I don't mean negatively) to move the needle in areas where Satya couldn't alone. CEO's, surprisingly, don't always have a lot of power. They are like nervous feudal lords, always worried about popular revolts, public opinion, antagonism from the nobles (i.e. other execs). So having someone with the tremendous power of 'authenticity' is like gold. If Satya and Bill agree 'we need to move the company in this direction' ... Satya alone would have a lot of convincing ... but if 'Bill says it' and starts propagating this idea in all-hands and in meetings, then it's a done deal. It will happen for better or worse. Having the 'founders word' is such an amazing thing if it works in a situation.

3) Maybe he was always doing this, but having his 'extra organizational outreach' is powerful. Calling up big CEO's of customers, politicians, lobbyists, governmental people etc.. Who's going to turn down a call from Bill Gates? Nobody really :). So it's a big thing to have him create connections and pave the road ahead socially.

<comment><USER3> The CTO of Schlumberger once completely ghosted Satya. His son works for Google and they had a big push for GCP and Satya called on him to discuss options and such and ... Crickets.

This was when Satya was a bit more of an unknown but still, ignoring the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world is stone cold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let me just leave this here if there are some people who have missed this jewel: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg- rev...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/)

<comment><USER5> Anyone else cringe? The absolute worship of rich people in American culture.

<comment><USER6> I mean, I don't think you're getting the full picture here. The guy who wrote that is pretty damn successful himself now (he helped create stackoverflow and his company has had some huge successes with software like Trello) and probably owes some part of that success to the stuff that BG invented. So while I think your sentiment in general might be true (Americans certainly do have a disgusting idolization of rich people) I think in this case it's a bit misguided.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not much to that article, but Gates does seem like one of those guys who even if not directly in the mix has more than enough experience and would still be relevant to talk to to get some perspective / advice now and then. I imagine some ex executives might be stuck in the mud, Bill seems like he would still be very relevant.

<comment><USER8> I've heard multiple Microsoft Research researchers describe that they'd interacted with Gates, and he was able to discuss quite technical aspects of their fields and their work.

<comment><USER7> I only ever met one executive who was like that. It was amazing.

Dude was basically on a guided tour and like many before stopped to ask me what I was up to. I mentioned some high level stuff and then he asked some questions that shocked me ... in the sense that they were good questions that really indicated he knew what I did. I answered cautiously, he asked some more along the lines of "oh so" and we went back and forth and I realized dude just "got it" as far as how we worked, what we were doing, challenges, and etc.

It was great, and maybe a bit sad that was the one time.

Dude in question was too good for the company at that time and moved on. The company didn't really want someone who knew what was going on because inevitably that meant some push back / organization / shifting momentum here or there. So he moved on and we got a yes man who had no clue.

<comment><USER9> I've met one or two "executive level" people like this and it's pretty shocking. You're used to having to dumb down what you say, to a 6-year-old's understanding, in order to talk to these guys, and all of a sudden you meet one who knows the details of CDMA technology or is an expert on spatial indexes or something. "Mind blown" moment! Sadly, like your example they don't seem to last, and get replaced with more political yes-men.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "Even to this day I do some architecture things on the various products," > Gates said during the segment.

I really wonder what that looks like.

<comment><USER11> VMS -> WNT

<comment><USER12> that was all Cutler, not Gates

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The 10 minute video referenced in the article. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzUUghxDhYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzUUghxDhYM)

</comment><comment><USER14> isn't he a board member? why would that be surprising?

<comment><USER15> For a period in the Ballmer era it was said that Gates had entirely disconnected to focus 100% on the charity work. There is some surprise that Gates seems to be more involved in the Nadella era given how strict Gates was said to be hands-off during Ballmer's tenure, though certainly it is still no surprise that the charity work is still Gates' focus.

<comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Personal_life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Personal_life)

> They have three children: Jennifer Katharine (b. 1996), Rory John (b. 1999), > and Phoebe Adele (b. 2002).

Probably has something to do with it. His youngest is close to college age now.

<comment><USER17> That doesn't really make a lot of since though. Why all of a sudden for the younger one? He spend most of those years in command for Microsoft, before focusing on charity work from 2008 and up. (His children would have been roughly 12, 9, and 6 at that time.) So, that may be a part of it but probably not a major part.

<comment><USER18> He basically stepped down from active management with the birth of his second child. (Ballmer became CEO in Jan 2000).

<comment><USER17> Ah, I was under the impression that he had stepped down in 2008. But that was probably from any activity at Microsoft and 2000 was when he relinquished the CEO title. Thank you for clarifying that. It does sound like that may be more closely related than I thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They announced he would start getting involved again when Nadella became CEO.

</comment><comment><USER20> lol, so this article is based on a throwaway line in a YouTube video that can be interpreted in a multitude of ways.... yeah, great reporting

</comment><comment><USER21> A non-article if there ever was one.

</comment><comment><USER22> Bill is the man.

</comment><comment><USER23> I assume he's on the forced upgrades and data loss teams

<comment><USER24> Change Management and Loss Prevention are their official team names. /s

<comment><USER25> Ministry of Truth?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hopefully, he can steer MS away from projects like the Zune.

<comment><USER27> You take that back, the Zune was the best portable media player ever made

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I believe he is the Visual Basic product champion.</comment>


Drawbridge [2011] - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/drawbridge/?from=http%3A%2F%2Fresearch.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Fprojects%2Fdrawbridge%2F <comment><AUTHOR> the roots of pico process i think this is where to start vivisecting the development of WSL</comment>


Putting your personal brand ahead of your business brand - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/articles/2010/10/gary-vaynerchuk-on-personal-branding.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting quote: "Brands mature over time, like a marriage. The bond you feel with your spouse is different than when you first met each other. Excitement and discovery are replaced by comfort and depth." Of course Apple is the exception to this rule.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think one ought put customer satisfaction ahead of the branding of any individual or business.

A brand in 2010 is built on the reputation of your product. Who cares about who or what creates it.

<comment><USER4> brands that are based on social "coolness" can be built with pretty pictures and stories alone... after all, the story is the only difference between the designer dress and the knockoff. But for most of the rest of us, there needs to be something to actually back that up. Some essential quality of the product or service.

For example, for my own brand, not only do I eschew rounded corners and pretty logos, but I also embrace this idea that I'm providing you a commodity product. (most brands try to differentiate, because you can charge more for a differentiated product than a commodity product.) I even say up front that customer service is one of the things I'm skimping on. If you need lots of support, see the other guys. But, if you can handle running it without much help from me, I'll give you the same product for less money.

For me, the brand, and the "story" behind the brand is a way to manage customer expectations, to lower my support costs, and yes, to increase customer satisfaction (by selecting for the sort of customer who will be happy with the sort of service I am able and willing to provide.)

(note, I re-wrote this comment, as the previous version was stupid.)

<comment><USER3> Totally agree.

You will probably enjoy this blog: <http://www.bakedin.com>

Written by my mentor and advertising/marketing genius, Alex Bogusky (formally of Crispin Porter & Bogusky)</comment></comment></comment>


Justin.TV is bigger than Hulu...overseas - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/25/justintv-is-bigger-than-hulu-overseas/ <comment><USER2> Comparing global traffic for Justin.TV and Hulu borders on being idiotic since Hulu is, um let's see, _not accessible outside the US._ How can TC write a whole article about this and not even mention this pretty pertinent fact?

Edit: It's been pointed out that the article does mention that Hulu is only available in the U.S. Sorry, totally missed that. The article still seems trollish though.

<comment><USER3> The title is very misleading. It is not saying that Justin.TV outside the US is bigger than Hulu outside the US.

The article is saying that Justin.TV (global, including the US) is bigger than Hulu (only available in the US).

That is a true statement, even if it is also worth pointing out that Hulu only reaches US consumers, so in percentage terms, it reaches a larger percent of its audience, even though it is smaller on an absolute scale to Justin.TV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a company that I am just _very_ uncomfortable with. Just so much pirated content. If they get anywhere close to popular, they are going to get sued. I hope they have a big war-chest.

I know the immediate answer - YouTube. Just because they got rich (Google still doesn't seem to have made money on the deal) doesn't make what they did _right_. Right and wrong, yeah, I know, very "quaint" notions.

After all, Wall Street investment bankers got very rich creating toxic waste and ultimately unloading it on the tax payer. I met a dude recently who was in that line of business, and he said it wasn't like they didn't _know_ what they were doing. They all along knew what the game was, but their attitude was "I am getting mine, so who cares."

</comment><comment><USER5> In other news, TechCrunch has a bigger audience than The Bold and the Beautiful amongst male programmers that do not own a TV.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know how much of that is essentially pirated content? The reason I ask is that I have trouble imagining there are 15 million people watching live streams of random people (i.e. the original stream of Justin's). It's more believable that they watch stuff like sporting events that have no local coverage. I could obviously be wrong though!

<comment><USER7> Look at viewer count in the directory. I'd guess 95% illegal or more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What about in terms of advertising dollars? That's what matters, otherwise you're just losing cash on unmonetizable streams. I'd wager Hulu is far and away the leader in monetizing their traffic.

</comment><comment><USER9> Guys, the main point Erick is making is that live video is significant, not that Justin.tv is kicking Hulu's ass. Despite the title, that's an interesting observation. I for one didn't think live video would be as big.

 _So most of its audience and growth is global, with particular strength in Spain, Brazil, Germany, and the UK._

I'm pleasantly surprised Brazil has that much broadband penetration.

<comment><USER10> That's because the lawyers haven't adjusted yet. They go combing the internet for their content after it airs, but by that time its already gone from justin.tv. For that reason, you used to be able to watch MMA events on justin.tv until only a few months ago, but those events have long been scrubbed from youtube, Dailymotion, and the other video services not based in Russia. However, it does seem that the lawyers are catching up. UFC is now blocked on justin.tv, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a question about justin.tv's architecture. I always avoided the site because I made public denunciations of its stupid name, but I eventually went to it and was shocked by its similarity to blogtv.com

I grabbed these randomly:

<http://www.justin.tv/poshvixxxen>

<http://www.blogtv.com/People/whiteboy712>

There're some obvious similarities here. Did they both just pick off-the-shelf components and host them?

<comment><USER12> I can't speak for blog.tv, but I personally wrote the justin.tv video player, chat client, and chat server software. So the answer would be, no ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> These two are not even in the same business.

</comment><comment><USER14> <http://www.justin.tv/officecam> \- thrilling tv

</comment><comment><USER15> global is not equal to overseas

(hulu is not available from canada or mexico)</comment>


Star Wars as Asciimation (animated text) - <AUTHOR> http://www.asciimation.co.nz/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's also a variant in proper style, i.e. Telnet instead of HTTP:

      telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

<comment><USER2> classic!</comment></comment>


It's Not Just You: 71 Percent of Tweets Are Ignored - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/its-not-just-you-71-percent-of-tweets-are-ignored

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't agree that a tweet without a reply or a retweet is ignored. If somebody reads a tweet, and just for an instant thinks "oh, i agree", or "what an idiot", the tweet had some impact. Of course, it all depends on the way you use and look at twitter. There are many "lurkers" out there that just like to follow interesting people and read their thoughts and opinions, and don't feel the need to reply or retweet every single tweet they come across.

On the other hand, a lot of them should be ignored. I really get a lot of tweets that are part of conversations or some personal stuff. It is a shame when a smart person that sometimes has really interesting tweets, "spams" you with unimportant tweets talking with his friend he just saw 10 minutes ago and will see tomorrow first thing in the morning. Common, use mail, IM or facebook for that. Sometimes I feel like I am intruding on a phone call. I know, who am I to tell them how to use twitter. Of course, I don't want to. But, that is when people stop following them and their tweets get really ignored.</comment>


ExActivity, simple async db logging for your webapps, in Elixir - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jackjoe/ex_activity <comment><AUTHOR> This is our first stab at a Elixir library and our very first OSS contribution! We hope it can be of use to anyone, we are using it ourselves in production.

We created the lib because after 10 years of developing PHP apps we had settled with a structured way to gather logs from our apps, in a database. We really liked this setup, so we ported it to use in our Elixir/Phoenix apps.

Feedback is welcome!</comment>


Physicists investigate why matter and antimatter are not mirror images - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think you forgot the link

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right :( Flag for removal.</comment></comment>


Show HN: TribePulse – Thoughtful team communication for remote companies - <AUTHOR> https://www.tribepulse.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We've just launched TribePulse - think of it like an internal blog/reddit for your remote team or company.

The first question we usually get is - how does this complement Slack?

While slack is great for when you need an immediate response, the constant pings are highly distracting and eliminate many of the benefits of remote work.

Instead of replicating a real-life office environment, we believe that the benefits of remote work should be embraced i.e. asynchronous communication.

Not only does async communication give team members in other timezones the opportunity to voice their opinions, but it gives everyone the chance to reflect and provide more thought out responses.

Async communication doesn't necessarily mean less communication, in fact, we have built "surface" functionality to make sure important conversations get the attention they deserve.

We believe that by promoting more thoughtful communication, internal knowledge (along with their context) can be captured and retained so that rework can be minimised.

If you work remotely or worth with remote team members, we'd love for you to try out TribePulse and to hear your thoughts!

<comment><USER2> It sounds like something I'd be quite interested in but your site is a platitude-rich, content-free zone. There isn't even a single screenshot. I have no idea whether what you built is worth the time it will take for me to evaluate whether it's actually worth trying. By failing/refusing to put any actual info on your site, you shift 100% of the evaluation/assessment/understanding/describing cost onto me, and you do so before I have any idea of whether I might want what you have. I'm simply not going to invest many hours trying to understand something you can't be bothered to explain. Worse, even if I evaluate it and love it, there is nothing I can point anyone else on my team at to say "we should try this" \- I'm going to have to spend additional hours taking my own screenshots and figuring out for myself how to sell and market your product before I can get buy in from the rest of my stakeholders. Figuring out how to sell your product into an organization isn't my job, it's yours.

I don't understand why you'd invest so much time building a communication product and so little time communicating a built product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback - all very valid points and highly actionable.

We are currently working on revamping our "Product" page and will definitely be including more product screenshots/recordings to better explain and demonstrate specific use-cases for TribePulse. We hope you'll have another look once the new "Product" page is live.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Publishes Sexist Letter To Help Dudes Convince Women To Buy Xbox One - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/27/microsoft-publishes-sexist-form-letter-to-help-dudes-convince-women-to-let-them-buy-an-xbox-one/

<comment><USER2> How is this sexist? Typical Techcrunch making a big deal about nothing because they know the whole "women in tech" thing is hot property right now. It's just a lame attempt on Microsoft's part to be funny, the title made the letter seem so much worse than it was.

If Apple did this Techcrunch would probably have spun the article saying how revolutionary Apple's marketing tactics are and that email campaigns like this are the future of product marketing. The bias of Techcrunch writers is so obvious, I am surprised people still visit the site, they are the Fox News of tech journalism.

It's not like the letter said the following:

"Hey woman,

I know you're busy making my breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the last thing you want to hear is me talking about the new fangled gaming console coming out, especially considering you're probably tired from cleaning up after me and ironing all of my business shirts.

Think of all of the fun we can have together. While you're making me a sandwich, I can yell things like; get me another beer woman and pass the mead wench, while I am yelling obscenities at 13 year old kids in Call of Duty. I can then show you a character I created in a game of a woman with large breasts & mini skirt and then make you feel so insecure about how you look that you develop an eating disorder and get breast implants. It'll be a win- win situation."

Now that's what a sexist letter would look like, but you know what? The original letter implies the person sending it has a girlfriend or wife who doesn't like playing games (my girlfriend sure doesn't like playing games, I'd probably send it to her and she would laugh). The tech industry has become so obsessed with the whole women in tech issue that they will distort anything they can to cause controversy and get ad impressions.

Techcrunch is a sinking ship, they haven't been the same since Arrington left and The Verge hit the scene, anything for a story it would seem.

 _I posted this as a comment on the story as well_

<comment><USER3> Totally agree, typical TC linkbait. Examples picked by TechCrunch are not even default ones, so they crafted the letter to sound sexist and than complain about it...

<comment><USER4> I think those words _were_ there, but according to TC's update, Microsoft have "slightly edited the letter" \-- my guess is they removed all the defaults. It still says "click the text in green to customize your perfect letter" even though there's no green text anymore. It looks like they removed some options as well, since "knit" isn't even available as one of the options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Satirical email is satirical. Settle down techcrunch.

Also, small detail, the email is gender neutral.</comment>


Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-04/bitcoin-is-an-escapist-safe-haven <comment><USER2> > Its decentralized nature means it's not part of any system

That... isn't true. The bitcoin blockchain is distributed, but the last two years have functionally proven that bitcoin core IS bitcoin, and that implementation (most of whoms developers are employed by Blockstream) is centralized control by a corporate entity.

They can change what they want about bitcoin, and even after they force controversial tech already in tree like RBF or proposals like Segwit there has never been even close - by an order of magnitude - close to enough consensus to transition away from bitcoin core by replacing it as the majority client, and thus the implementation that controls the blockchain - the implementation that controls the protocol.

That is where I lost faith in the bitcoin dream. It started out as a project of idealists but has turned in large part into a for profit venture to create a large exploitable fee machine for black market trading sites.

Its replacement will require the diligence of its idealists to stay in charge and to not give the keys over to those whose objectives just involve profit.

<comment><USER3> The reason no one has countermanded the changes implemented in Bitcoin Core is that none of the changes have been unreasonable.

<comment><USER4> The most recent so called "segwit" change set that core pushed out recently looks to have strong enough opposition to it that it will never activate and the Bitcoin Ultimate implementation has strong support among a vocal and growing group of users. I would be surprised if core holds the control it currently does in a year or two.

<comment><USER5> The important thing is on the ,,vocal'' part. For a lot of us Bitcoin is working wonderfully, and we trust and respect the current leadership of Bitcoin Core a lot. Still, we have other things to do in our lives, so don't have time to argue with the vocal people who have one resource that we don't: time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bitcoin is basically a way to get money out of China. 97% of the trading is in yuan, as the article points out. All other uses are down in the noise.

<comment><USER7> Also I suspect why mining equipment is seemingly always a net-loss: if your goal is to escape capital controls, you're willing to take a loss vis-a-vis someone who is just trying to make more of the same currency. (USD->BTC->USD)

<comment><USER6> Because mining is "exporting", miners get breaks on power and loans. After those, it's probably not a net loss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone have a source for cross-country Bitcoin flows? I am curious if it is getting gentler treatment, in the U.S. and Europe, on account of it siphoning wealth from South America, China and Russia into the former's economies.

</comment><comment><USER9> _" whatever danger you fear, Bitcoin has no direct exposure to it"_

Hah.

</comment><comment><USER10> Notable is that Ethereum is experiencing a lagging, but similar, increase in value. According to Coinbase [1], it has gone from 8.30 -> 11.42 (37%) since the 1st.

1\. [https://www.coinbase.com/charts](https://www.coinbase.com/charts)

<comment><USER11> Not just ETH, but most of the top alts have hit ATHs today. XMR is up over 50% this week, and DASH is up 66%.

<comment><USER12> Given enough jargon, most discussions sound like sports coverage. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't forget India!

[http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/india-rupee-restriction- boost...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/india-rupee-restriction-boost- bitcoin-digital-currency.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> "The virtual currency's value rests, in the final analysis, on nothing but the faith of the community that supports it.

The faith can be relatively easy to undermine, of course. In 2013, bitcoin plummeted from its high because of a December move by the People's Bank of China, which banned mainland banks from dealing in the cryptocurrency."

Is this not a contradiction? Clearly it shows the value of Bitcoin responds to political events in the same way as any currency does.

<comment><USER15> It's a recursive definition, at least. They say the value rests on the faith of the community, and that this faith can be undermined by a change in value/price. But I guess this is an accurate description of the value of money: it's worth something because it's worth something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I always considered bitcoin a social network for a certain type of nerd. That it can occasionally be used to buy things is a bonus.

</comment><comment><USER17> Quoting from [http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price- january-4-2017-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price- january-4-2017-2017-1)

Bitcoin's gains have been buoyed by renewed interest from China, where money is rushing out of the country as its currency, the yuan, continues to weaken...

According to a recent Business Insider Intelligence briefing, citing data from Cryptocompare: "In the first 24 hours of the new year, over 5 million bitcoins were bought in Chinese yuan, equating to $3.8 billion. In contrast, just 53,000 bitcoins were bought in US dollars."

<comment><USER18> 1/3rd of the entire bitcoin supply changed hands in China in a 24 hour time period?

Come on that doesn't even make sense. Perhaps a notional value of 5 million bitcoin by volume were traded, but some phrases make more sense than others.

<comment><USER19> Which isn't surprising at all, because many of the Chinese exchanges have no trading fees. So of course you have massive volumes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't see anything 'safe' about bitcoin ownership, it's quite volatile and risky, and not backed by any asset. So, not really safe in any classical sense.

<comment><USER19> What asset backs dollars?

<comment><USER21> The tax-collecting power of the US federal government, backed by the world's largest military.

<comment><USER22> Russian ruble was backed by a tax-collecting power and a large military too, but they still had a hyperinflation period during 90s. It's easy to mismanage a currency for the precise reason, that it is not backed by anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That was the most optimistic article ever. I don't think Richard Simmons is as excited about exercising as this guy is about bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER24> cant believe its over 1k again

</comment><comment><USER25> Contrast that with this _utterly terrible_ FT article (login required, but you can search for the title on Google and bypass it):

[https://www.ft.com/content/b5d66ed8-d1b3-11e6-b06b-680c49b4b...](https://www.ft.com/content/b5d66ed8-d1b3-11e6-b06b-680c49b4b4c0)

</comment><comment><USER26> Bitcoin fails to satisfactorily answer von Mises' regression theorem. It also has no scarcity since it can face competition by an infinite number of similar conceivable algorithms / block-chains / virtual currencies that offer much the same features, regardless of how hard its own mining gets. Not to mention that once it is perceived as more than just a nuisance by some major government it will be shut down in a heartbeat. Future generations will laugh at our incredulity just like we make fun of the Tulip mania (which had more substance to boot). There is real, almost insatiable global demand for a currency with intrinsic value and scarcity that cannot be inflated by fiat. But given that such a currency will antagonize major governments it will likely not be a crypto-currency but rather a currency backed by some sufficiently powerful country. I am actually expecting the Russians or Chinese to launch a 100% gold-backed currency within the next 5 years. Failing that, when the EU breaks up the new Deutsche mark will be a good alternative. Any of these developments will pop Bitcoin's bubble.

<comment><USER27> > once it is perceived as more than just a nuisance by some major government > it will be shut down in a heartbeat

Actually, the unique feature that makes Bitcoin special is specifically its censorship-resistance. That's why people value it -- because it cannot be shut down.

<comment><USER28> It is resistant to confiscation, but the IRS can still make you a fugitive in most of the developed world.

<comment><USER29> Not if they don't know that you own an account.

<comment><USER30> The IRS got Switzerland to open up previously-confidential banking records.

You think they're not going to find a way to identify Bitcoin users? "It's on _the internet_ , that makes it untraceable" is magical thinking that does not survive contact with sufficiently dedicated real-world agencies.

<comment><USER29> The IRS got people to give up the identities of other people.

With bitcoin, if you take the right precautions, it is impossible for anyone to know which account is yours.

It is a TECHNICAL solution. It doesn't matter how many people the IRS threaten.

Can the US government tell everyone in the world to think of a random number, then these citizens don't tell anybody what number they chose, and then can the government arrest everyone who chooses the number 10? No, it cannot do this.

And if it can't do that, then it can't arrest all the bitcoin owners.

<comment><USER30> OK. So buy something with Bitcoin _without_ :

* Ever appearing at a retail establishment with security cameras

* Ever scheduling a product for delivery to any address, period

* Ever scheduling a service to be provided at any location, period

* Ever communicating with the other party via any means whatsoever, including placing an order online, not even via Tor behind seven proxies

And tell me how it goes. Because all of those things above are vectors for identifying you that big random numbers won't solve.

<comment><USER31> Ultimately, all of this assumes that the IRS are willing to prove that they will risk their lives and die for what they believe in. They will not, because they expect the police force to do that, who in turn will not, because they expect the army to do that. And that is how it all went wrong so often in the past.

<comment><USER30> Why would the IRS need to risk their lives to conduct a legal investigation? If you're caught on a CCTV camera somewhere, they're going to be able to find out about it without getting killed.

And if somebody plans to kill IRS agents, well, that _is_ going to bring out the heavy forces, and will not end well for the tax evader.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Travelers just won back a bit of their privacy at the border - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/07/14/travelers-just-won-back-a-bit-of-their-privacy-at-the-border/ <comment><USER2> I don't see anything travelers won back. The letter is saying CBP policy doesn't allow these things, when obviously agents have been doing them. It may be against policy, but unless you reprimand or fire people over it your policy is useless.

The letter is just ass covering and the title is terribly misleading.

<comment><USER3> This seems to be a general issue with any sort of attempt to impose restrictions on police-like agencies these days - between the boundlessly sympathetic legal system, the political power of police unions and an institutional culture that distributes responsibility between superiors and "boots on the ground" in a maximally deniable way, in practice the only way to get them to abide by a rule is to get them to believe themselves that to do so is for the better.

<comment><USER4> This is exactly why I donate to the EFF. I urge anyone else to do so as well:

[https://www.eff.org/helpout](https://www.eff.org/helpout)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Phone applications and their data are so abstracted these days, it would be difficult for even an IT expert to differentiate between cloud and local data if search takes place using the device itself (which I assume is what happens). If they connect the phone via USB and browse the contents with a workstation, that might be a different story.

So in practice, nothing has changed.

<comment><USER6> Just put the phone in flight mode.

Wireless interfaces are deactivated, and any attempt at accessing online material is greeted with a message stating that you're offline.

<comment><USER7> Some apps won't let you access any of your content without authenticating with their servers. So even if it's local content, not having an internet connection would deny access. I can envision CBP saying they need to crack your phone to get to the local stuff.

<comment><USER8> What apps do that, besides games?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Backup phone

2\. Encrypt backup

3\. Upload encrypted backup to cloud server

4\. Delete backup

5\. Wipe phone back to factory settings

6\. Cross border

7\. Download backup from cloud

8\. Decrypt backup

9\. Restore phone

This is the only sane thing to do besides not crossing the border with an electronic device at all.

<comment><USER10> Won't it arouse suspicions to have a clearly used, but blank phone?

<comment><USER11> Yes it does. There was one recent case where possession of a factory reset phone was considered obstruction of justice. No I don't have a link or citation, so feel free to ignore.

<comment><USER12> If you knowingly did it to hide evidence then I can see how that would be obstruction. No different than wiping your hard drives if you think you're going to be raided.

<comment><USER11> Hide evidence of what?

<comment><USER13> A crime.

<comment><USER11> What crime? Are you assuming there is some crime?

<comment><USER12> Thats what I was trying to say. Casually wiping drives I agree shouldn't be suspicious but if you're doing something that may be unlawful and you're wiping - can't really complain they nail you with obstruction or worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hm. Lots of information is cached, like facebook messages. And Whatsapp is located on the phone itself. Honestly, it's still pretty bad no matter how you look at it.

<comment><USER15> Sync to the cloud, then reset the device at the border, then restore from cloud after that.

<comment><USER16> Except now you've transferred your data over an international border and into a third parties infrastructure. If you're paranoid, that isn't more reassuring either. I suppose if you encrypt the files yourself before uploading, then your data are a bit safer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like 1Password's new Travel Mode ([https://support.1password.com/travel- mode/](https://support.1password.com/travel-mode/)) is actually going to be effective.

</comment><comment><USER17> Not to sound facetious, but data on a "remote server" could be accessed through a (legal or non-legal) backdoor. So this amendment is little relief.

</comment><comment><USER18> Unless they install Faraday cages at airports, I don't see how this practically changes things for travelers.

Do I turn on "airplane mode", and make the border patrol agent super-duper pinky swear that he won't toggle it back off?

</comment><comment><USER19> Are they required at all to produce a list of what they are looking for, like the police must do when serving a search warrant? If not, what guarantees do people have that they won't hold/prosecute you for anything unlawful they find?

<comment><USER20> Basically, when crossing the US border you have no rights.

<comment><USER19> That doesn't really answer my question.

<comment><USER21> But it does. It's the most gigantic "NO" possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's not that long ago when downloading SMS etc. was worth an outrage. I hope it's not only time between us and the server access.

</comment><comment><USER23> I couldn't care less about cell phones as long as I still have to provide my finger prints.

</comment><comment><USER24> And I can't even delete my profile/old comments on "Hacker news".

</comment><comment><USER11> The "freedom won" described in the article is not significant. It clarifies that border searches won't routinely include using your local credentials to log into your facebook or other social media accounts whose data is not stored on the phone other than log in credentials. Yet one is still expected to provide log in credentials to the phone during border crossings. This still means that the only reasonable and sane process is to factory reset a phone or not carry one at all.</comment>


Build your own dial up ISP in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://dogemicrosystems.ca/wiki/Dial_up_server <comment><USER3> I thought before the idea of modem-over-VoIP would be cool to have a BBS which was more retro than just a telnet BBS could be.

(At my house, my only options are VoIP and cellular. POTS service has been shut down.)

I wonder how well modems work over VoIP though? My understanding is that the voice-oriented compression causes problems (although you can turn that off by using G.711), but the bigger issue is the unreliable timing of most IP connections upsets the modem and it keeps on disconnecting.

ITU V.150.1 (aka V.MOIP) is supposed to fix that but I don't know think many VoIP providers implement it.

<comment><USER4> I've done 2400 baud and lower over VOIP. 9600+ gets bit unstable.

<comment><USER5> Naive question, I've not used VOIP before, is the modem, implemented entirely in software to achieve this?

<comment><USER4> I use a hardware modem (USB modem actually) attached to a hardware VOIP analog telephone adapter. I am not familiar with software VOIP modems but hopefully someone else can chime in if it's possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing. I also plan to build that.

I wonder if telephone providers have some sort of recognition to detect people using (abusing?) a free call plan for transfering data. Certainly, if your "call" takes several days, that may violate some TOS.

(The use case I have in mind is to save money by using cheap prepaid SIM cards without an internet plan. It is purely for interest/proof of concept, not for scamming...)

<comment><USER7> i know in Ireland, most of our Unlimited providers have a limit of 45000 min a month... which is grand, given there are only 44640 min in a normal 31 day month... but GSM is a lot more limited in bandwidth than standard POTS: old GSM Modems would top out at 9.6kbps, with some having a 14.4kbps option... it wasnt till GPRS that you got faster speeds (packet switched, not Modem).

<comment><USER8> > it wasnt till GPRS that you got faster speeds

Forgot to mention, GPRS uses the same time slots as voice calls do over GSM. Each time slot is still limited to about 9.6k useable data rate as with using a modem, but GPRS allows bonding to use more than one time slot. As such, using three time slots would get you 28.8k, using six gets you 57.6k, etc.

<comment><USER7> both comments are very handy to know! thanks. i remember trying to get internet access on my Nokia 7650 back in the day, and been given HSDCA and GPRS as options... larger downloads usually worked out cheaper on HSDCA (it was charged per min, no bandwidth limit, bar the standard limits) but GPRS worked out handier for "browsing" which, back then, was not standard either... big difference between now and then...

<comment><USER8> Back when I had an ISP in the mid 90s, I felt like I was king of the world as I had a T1 going to my place (as I only had to pay for the local loop, bandwidth was "free" by owning the ISP). My dream back then was to have those speeds everywhere I went. Fast forward 25 years and my _watch_ can get 20x that speed even in a random rural area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unrelated but can some one tell me what is the "portable" computer in the picture? [https://dogemicrosystems.ca/mywiki/images/3/3c/DIY_dial_up_I...](https://dogemicrosystems.ca/mywiki/images/3/3c/DIY_dial_up_ISP.jpg)

<comment><USER10> That looks to be an INET Spectra of some kind. Possibly an 8243-1 based on a few searches.

<comment><USER9> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> non-entity Oh haha, I remember finding this a couple months back when I was discussing with a colleague, an old serial modem I have. I was wondering how difficult it would be to simulate a modem connection between the terminal and a PC as opposed to a direct serial line between the two. Now that I found this again, I might have to try it out.

<comment><USER11> Many "Winmodems" in the 90's and beyond were little more than soundcards connected to an RJ-11. Modulation/demodualtion was done in software, and this was in the sub-1GHz days of PCs. So this was actually not uncommon, but of course binary only.

There were some Linux projects to do this in a generic way - <USER2> generate the required tones over the audio output and interpret tones over an audio input - and implement the various ITU V-series standards (though some of them were patented and could not be implemented, like V.92 for 56k).

There's another one other than iaxmodem ([https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3069945/open-source- soft...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3069945/open-source-soft-modem- that-runs-on-linux)) but I can't remember what it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "First, catch your rabbit." \- Old recipe for rabbit stew.

This lists a real serial modem as a prerequisite, and those are kinda getting to be collectors' items. Is it feasible to build a modem out of a Raspberry Pi Zero or an Arduino? You'd need to hook the phone line to the GPIO pins, do the ADC and DAC stuff in software, implement the V.22 protocol in software, and also implement the Hayes Smartmodem stuff in software, meaning this is one of the few times a Hacker News reader would have occasion to implement the Hayes Code. Is there any show-stopping problem I'm not seeing? Massive electrical incompatibility?

</comment><comment><USER13> Quite cool :)

I have my trusty old USR Courier and USR Sportster 14400 in a box. But I'm a bit more tempted to try and get pcboard running again using some of this setup. I don't have a landline in my house, only fiber so the asterisk option would be the way to go.

I also have disk images of my ms dos 6.22 floppies and PCBoard 15.22. I also have desqview for multinodes but I remember it was a PITA to get it running.

Now I just need an old 486 that is still running, my oldest running machine has dual pentium pro cpus and it doesn't behave all that nice with ms dos.

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135434)

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting. Still thinking back local setup a cell during protest to avoid interception ... guess phone call affected.

</comment><comment><USER16> Dial disks have gone extinct, so no more dial-up in the 21st century.</comment>


Google PageRank explained as a Ruby function - <AUTHOR> http://www.rubyinside.com/google-pagerank-in-five-lines-of-ruby-3313.html

<comment><USER2> What's the legality of firing someone over unsubstantiated rumors?

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean?

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I clicked a few links from that page and ended up at an article about Giles Bowkett being fired because someone said he was a child molester.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe you should start a thread on this topic. I honestly have no idea.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The European Go Conference, October 10th in Paris - <AUTHOR> http://dotgo.eu

<comment><USER2> So I am about to finish university in a couple of months and I have been using Go for the past year. Would it be a good idea to go to this conference or maybe wait a bit longer before I have more experience/money?

(I live in the UK)

<comment><USER3> A good idea to go.

It's a hacker conference, meaning it's cheap/affordable and there will be more focus on code and interesting things you can do with the code.

It's also cheap to get to from the UK as Eurostar in advance is relatively affordable, especially when compared to the cost of US conferences.

You will get to meet a lot of people, and right now people who can demonstrate a good standard of Go programming are definitely in demand. So you can make contacts to help get you a job (though you may already have a job by the time the conference comes around).

I hate the word "networking"... but "nerding out with people who share an interest in a set of technologies and a language" works pretty well. Especially given that this world is quite small, make friends now and when you are looking for a job some of them may remember that they met and liked you... and wouldn't it be good to give you a break whilst they gain another solid set of hands.

I say all of this with the caveat that I've been to a fair few conferences, and I'd recommend strongly steering clear of the heavily business and corporate focused events (obvious by the £500+ fees). But a hacker conference? Hell yeah.

<comment><USER2> Ok thanks ill look into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd better think of something to talk about now this has been announced :-)

Hey HN, what would you like me to talk about at this conference?

<comment><USER5> Talk about how you convinced CloudFlare to use Go for core products.

<comment><USER4> That was easy. I just wrote one of the core products in Go :-) Then someone wrote some SSL code, then we rewrote our DNS server in it.

It's a pretty easy drug to get hooked on, if you do things with lots of concurrent connections all doing similar things.

<comment><USER5> Ask forgiveness not permission? :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dammit, now I need to think of an excuse to be in Paris in October (and to get someone else to pay for that). ;)

In all seriousness, I'm glad this is happening. I'm going to GopherCon in April, and I'm glad that the Go community outside the US also seems to be strong.</comment>


Lots of Irritating Spurious Parentheses (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://fare.livejournal.com/77842.html?nojs=1

<comment><USER2> I love the _idea_ of Lisp and Scheme, and I have spent considerable weeks learning and playing in it. But at the end of the day, all those parentheses just make my eyeballs swim.

I want more than one way to group things together so that the grouping conveys some meaning without me having to read words. I.e., I want some syntax.

<comment> bun-neh If its the parentheses that get you, why not try a postfix language like forth or factor?

<comment><USER2> Yeah those are cool languages, I am intrigued by them.

So other than the bare-metal suitability of Forth, what is the killer app for postfix/concatenative lanaguages?

E.g., right now I'm trying to get into Erlang, because Riak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes.

"Lots of Irritating Spurious Parentheses", far too many awkward SHIFT-0, SHIFT-9 for )(, and also that I'm left-handed and lazy at the keyboard, I remapped keybindings: `]' and `[' in emacs for `)' and `('.

I've a suspicion that I'm not the first to do so.

<comment><USER4> My keyboard setup is as follows: dvorak layout, with the parens remapped where the "w" and "e" are on querty. In order to make emacs easier to use, I have the Ctrl mapped to the Alts and meta mapped to the win key. Caps Lock is backspace. Some people map Caps Lock to Ctrl, but this isn't needed in my setup. I've read about custom layouts with the parens on the home row.</comment></comment>


What Fintech Gets Wrong About Mortgage - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/servicing/what-fintech-gets-wrong-about-mortgage-1076603-1.html <comment><USER2> This article hits an important point. I share an office with a mortgage company (weird, I know). It's amazing how draconian all the various mortgage systems and processes are. Instead of focusing on shiny new ways to make the customer side of borrowing easier, I'm betting there is significantly more money in selling picks and axes to the companies originating, buying, and servicing those loans.</comment>


How's the development environment on the Surface Laptops? - <AUTHOR> I have had a hell of a time with Apple lately and quite honestly I don't think they deserve the thousands of dollars I give them for the MacBook Pro 15". I've had the power brick die on a one month old device. Catalina is one of the most buggy operating versions I've ever used.<p>For those on the surface laptop range what's the development experience like on windows? How's the power in the 16GB models and are you enjoying the laptop? <comment><USER2> Moved from macOS to Windows in 2016. And yes, obviously apple no longer has a dedicated macOS group and tells regular people who want laptops to run iPads. macOS doesn't get a lot of love.

Surface is basically just a high quality Windows machine. The dev environment, for most of the HN crowd, will be WSL2, which means Ubuntu 16.04 or 20.04. apt-get is way better than homebrew.

Surface specific:

\- I've had good experiences with the Microsoft store, if they exist in your country.

\- Alcantara can get gross after a year of palm sweat and personally I find it tough to clean.

Surface is cool, you can also look at Lenovo kit or the Dell XPS 13.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm definitely looking for premium support when something goes wrong. I think Apple no longer offers this service in real terms.

Ubuntu is ok. I've used it before. OSX is usually very good. Just Catalina is dreadful. I've picked a surface because it's as close to the Mac as I can find.

<comment><USER2> Personally I think OS X peaked in 2010, and the keyboard debacle sealed the deal for leaving. But fair enough.

The terminal you'll be using is Windows Terminal. It's good, and has a lot of attention from Microsoft.

What language are you coding in?

Personally a Surface Book 3, non Alcantara is the best dev machine. They all have great keyboards though. If you want to save money Surface Laptop 2 is on sale.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll see some YouTube videos about Microsoft terminal. If the new Ryzen CPU is in the latest surface laptops I think my mind will definitive made up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A Windows dev here who transitioned from OSX back in '14\. Surface is basically MS flagship, a highend Windows machine. Speaking of dev environment, mine is: \- WSL \- Virtualised Linux \- Remote Linux machines

Works like a charm.</comment>


If You Can Solve These, You Are As Smart As The World's Smartest Teenagers - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/if-you-can-solve-these-math-problems-you-are-as-smart-as-the-worlds-smartest-teenagers-2013-5#this-was-a-rather-straightforward-easy-word-problem-for-inderjit-kaur-16-4

<comment><USER2> As smart? No. As familiar with the level of math they're at? Yes.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think I can solve one ofthem!</comment>


Ask HN: What is the safest way to store passwords online? - <AUTHOR>

I have used an online scratchpad. After initially being unsure of Roboform, I have finally given and have started using Roboform.
Have there been any hacks or password breaches in Roboform?
Are there any other options out there?
p.s. I have tried the open-source KeePass. I have also worked in the strong authentication industry (using PKI) for three years- so I do understand AES, key-exchanges, etc. I am really looking for a solution which also my father could use (he is 60 yrs old). <comment><USER2> I recommend asking this question on www.superuser.com</comment>


Earth woefully unprepared for surprise comet or asteroid, Nasa scientist warns - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/dec/13/space-asteroid-comet-nasa-rocket <comment><USER2> Earth is woefully unprepared for a lot of things.</comment>


Good & almost balanced writeup comparing between Ruby & Python - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/28422d707512283?pli=1

<comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1637345>

Much discussion there ...

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh thanks. For pointing out. I searched before posting, but couldn't find that.</comment></comment>


You (probably) don't need PostGIS - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rebased.pl/2020/04/07/why-you-probably-dont-need-postgis.html <comment><USER2> I've used PostGIS a few times before and I'm curious why you wouldn't want to use it? It's very straightforward to install and use.

I also feel like it makes your Schema and database setup more easily extensible than if you start with the minimum and have to change it all later.

<comment><USER3> I'd agree with this, there's so little overhead with using it.

One other positive side effect is that you can plug QGIS or similar straight in and visualise your data with minimal effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So... You probably need PostGIS if you're writing a GIS/NIS style application or do analysis but not to show a few map pins on Google Maps.

I personally like it and don't even feel like it's very "heavy" like the article implies. Great performance even when running locally on my laptop in my dev environment and with tens of thousands of objects in the topology. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I am reading it correctly that the article is suggesting to install the earthdistance extension instead of PostGIS when needing distances between points. Why not go for PostGIS instead then?

<comment><USER6> Because then you can't do lazy content marketing on your blog.</comment></comment>


Investigations into the Doomsday Argument - <AUTHOR> http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/inv/investigations.html

<comment><USER2> Isn't the key difference here that all the balls in the urn exist simultaneously where as all humans who will ever live do not?</comment>


How to be Happy during a Pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@karim_ouda/how-to-be-happy-during-a-pandemic-1907962e866 <comment><USER2> The book of Revelation is just one prophesy from one culture but I read it as a devout christian and without commentary. I took something out of the book many of my bretheren don't want to and that is a call to preservere. We must love our familys and neighbors while the world crashes down all around us. Stand for truth and love. Take each day as special. Most everyone will lose it all in the real end times whenever that happens. Apocalypses happen, such as 1914-1919 and 1939-1950. God keeps his finger down on all the damage we would normally do to ourselves. Don't lose heart of what matters in this life. Love, honor, family, God. You can have all those things if you are rich or poor.</comment>


Pyflow – A Cleaner Python Workflow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/David-OConnor/pyflow <comment><AUTHOR> I'm attempting to make Python tooling as simple and user-friendly as possible. Python's a beautiful language, but its dependency, interpreter-management, and build ecosystem is comparatively clumsy; I think we can improve it without having to use a separate tool for each area.</comment>


What Record-Low Unemployment Looks Like in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-15/this-is-what-record-low-unemployment-looks-like-in-america <comment><USER2> Unemployment rate might be the most important indicator politically, but it really is the wrong one for most of the things we care about.

What it tells you is (mostly) how much unemployment will be paid out and (to some extent) how available workers are.

Anyway, "healthy" unemployment rate is usually 4%-7%.

The "right" metric is "employment rate," which is _not_ the inverse. This is just the people working out of the working age population. It doesn't care whether people are unemployed, unable to work, retired, students, stay at home parents... Just how many people work.

This is usually around 60%-70%.

...so obviously "unemployed" leaves out the vast majority of non workers.

If you want to compare one area to another, for example, compare employment rates. Worried about techno-"unemployment," monitor employment rates. Slower, steadier societal effects will show here.

<comment><USER3> Is there any metric that includes a "livable employment rate"? I.e. does employment count if you aren't making enough to get by on?

With the growing class divide and inflation, how much does being employed matter if you need two or three jobs to get by?

<comment><USER4> How would you measure that? "Enough to get by on" is very different in different situations (single, family, young, old, etc).

<comment><USER5> Economists usually use the (local) cost of a "basket of goods" to figure that out. What goes into the basket is a political choice, though.

<comment><USER4> An answer to you and to most of the other comments in this thread:

This isn't what I was getting at. Take for example university students. Their earning power is significantly smaller than more experienced people. They also tend to need a lot less money, because they're usually single, don't often have a mortgage, live in a small apartment or in their parent's house, etc.

Many students work part-time in a restaurant or similar. For them, this will probably be a "livable wage", whether because their needs are smaller as discussed, or because they're relying to some extent on their parents.

Take another person of the same age, but who has a family and no parents for support, and assume they earn the same. For them, this same wage is _not_ livable.

How would you statistically separate these cases? I'm not saying there isn't a way, I'm just wondering what it is!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kashkari (Presidnet of Minneapolis Fed): "We were at maximum employment. We are now at maximumer employment."

Michael Lebowitz: "So explain why monetary policy is still in emergency mode. Funds at 1.25-1.50 and over $4 trln balance sheet."

Kashkari: "I thought the "tongue-in-cheekiness" of my tweet would be obvious. Allow me to translate: We keep saying we are at max employment and then all these people choose to work. It suggests we weren't really at max employment."

Reggie Palatty: "Dude I loved you in the Mummy Returns"

Kashkari: "I was better in the original"

[https://twitter.com/neelkashkari/status/972142317162369024](https://twitter.com/neelkashkari/status/972142317162369024)

To take a step back, the official unemployment # is only important in so far as its in the Federal Reserve's dual mandate to maximize employment while keeping inflation steady and moderate. Kashkari's comments suggest that we haven't hit max employment, and that not even high ranking members of the Fed have a firm grasp on what "max employment" looks like in the contemporary economy.

Fed wants to wait until we hit "max employment" to begin normalizing, which is akin to pumping the economic brakes. Normalizing = raising interest rates + removing bank liquidity = increasing cost and friction of borrowing/loaning = slows down economic activity.

The real question remains: how will employment and the overall economy change when the Fed starts to normalize interest rates and reduce the securities holdings from QE on its balance sheet. In theory it should reduce the rate of job creation.

More info on normalization here: [https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/policy- normali...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/policy- normalization.htm)

</comment><comment><USER7> The unemployment rate is still over 8% if you count those who have dropped off because they haven't found work in 6 or more months.

This measure was well under 7% at our last period of nearly full employment.

[http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment- rate](http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate)

<comment><USER8> U-6 unemployment has been trending down not up over the last year.

Looking at specific dates, raw U-6 is .9 less than a year ago. Seasonally adjusted U-6 is a full point less than a year ago.

[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm)

<comment><USER9> For all the talk about different unemployment rates, U3 - U6 track each other shockingly closely.

That said, OP's complaint still applies for LFPR or NEET percentage, which as far as I know are moving opposite U3-6?

<comment><USER8> LFPR has been mostly unchanged since the end of 2013. [https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000)

I agree, though, the U numbers are basically the definition of "fake news" from the standpoint of what you mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to understand how record employment affects 401k contributions and thereby, fuels the already heady stock market.

And what's happening with home ownership and real estate prices across the nation? For example, my development has 115 homes. Zero are for sale, and the last sale was nearly 1 year ago. There is no inventory.

Does it constitute a virtuous cycle for the economy? Next up, inflation and increasing interest rates as the fed works to keep the economy from overheating.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure inflation under these circumstances occurs independently of further fed intervention, the classical economic theory being that competition for labor (under low unemployment) drives an increase in salaries unaccompanied by an increase in productivity, resulting in inflation

<comment><USER12> Right but traditional inflation fears might be overblown... everything is basically manufactured in China or other low wage countries now. Food production is highly mechanized. And most jobs are in the service sector. All I can think of is that inflation manifests in insurance, healthcare, and housing costs.

<comment><USER11> Productivity can still be measured in service, although in certain cases abstractly, but for example a barber is a service worker with pretty measurable productivity. I think inflation can still occur within the classical model wrt the service sector. An example being that a restaurant has trouble keeping dishwasher positions filled, incentivizing them to increase dishwasher wages, requiring higher menu prices to compensate.

As long as the US continues to maintain a comparative advantage in certain industries (e.g. software) I see no reason why they will be immune to wage inflation either. In fact this is arguably already occurring

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I skimmed the article, so I may have missed it, but the article doesn't seem to mention that official numbers exclude long-term discouraged workers. Apparently they were removed from official numbers in 1994.

[http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment- chart...](http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts)

<comment><AUTHOR> The US - the BLS - commonly tracks multiple variations of employment. The two most common are the U3 and U6. They're very well known and easily accessible. Just punch in "u6 unemployment rate" into Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone explain how to reconcile this with the massive explosion in homelessness in SF and LA?

<comment><USER15> Sure: Employment and "has enough money to live" are not the same thing. The second one is a far more interesting metric, but also far more sober for most governments, so they don't use it.

<comment><USER16> I find it hard to imagine that so many people have jobs and live on the street at the same time. "Working homeless" is a thing but typically means couch surfing or car camping, not rough sleeping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If both unemployment were low and job satisfaction, it would seem to follow that opioid abuse would subside due to the fact most people use for escapism. Perhaps unemployment is low but with shit jobs and/or low pay, people are still miserable and going to use. The stat of low unemployment therefore maybe a pyrrhic victory.

<comment><USER18> The national average for unemployment is low. Certain areas are higher, much much higher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

"Unemployment" has been such a gamed term, especially since the Great Recession (at least, from my current perspective), that someone would have to argue me back to believing, to any significant degree, the numbers they are posting and stories they are telling about same.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well you can easily drill down through the murk, the BLS provides a plethora of data.

For example, a common criticism about the US employment picture, on sites such as zerohedge, is to claim that it's all part time work. We have these numbers however, so there's no need to speculate.

Part-time workers as a percent of the total employed, is at the same level it was in 1999. Around 17.7%. That rate continued to move lower until mid 2000, when it hit around 16.7% before the recession.

Employment for 27 weeks or longer (1/2 year or longer), is back to a healthy level, where it was during the good times in 2005-2006 and matching 1996-1997. Employment for the other duration periods has seen a similar recovery.

The long-term unemployed as a percentage of the total unemployed, is back to 1995 and 2005 levels.

All the more impressive, these vast improvements are coming down off of an extreme hammer to the labor market from the great recession. The ~2001-02 recession was a blip by comparison, and yet the labor market has managed to get back to what would be considered healthy numbers in both the mid 1990s and mid 2000s. In fact, compared to the 1970s and 1980s, current numbers would be considered amazing.

And further to the positive side, the benefits of this labor improvement have been entirely wide-spread. Black, white, asian, hispanic, everyone is seeing a labor boom.

[https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps_charts.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps_charts.pdf)

<comment><USER19> Thank you for taking the time to respond.

As an aside, politically, I'm entirely unwilling to credit this to the last year. My own prior reading (ok, mostly of news articles, albeit reasonably well-informed ones), described such effects as typically being a minimum of a year out from policy initiatives. 18 months being a more typical minimum.

The Great Recession hit me hard, and I've not seen the bounce back. Nor have others I know in my age bracket (later middle-age). That may color my perspective.

The country spent years digging out from the last financial disaster. And not the messaging seems to be, if you didn't grab as much as you could, it's your own fault.

P.S. And I do recall, a few years ago, the emphasis upon short term unemployment rates, avoiding discussion of the long-term unemployed and those who'd, from the perspective of the parameters of the statistical exercise, exited the labor market.

Thank you for addressing that to some extent. I do wonder, though, within specific demographics, what the levels of such may continue to be.

Have an upvote. I'm not complaining about your response -- to be clear. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'm entirely unwilling to credit this to the last year.

I'm in full agreement with that. This is a multi-stage procession of factors stretching back to 2010-2011. Economies, left well enough to their own and barring any extreme events, tend to improve/recover naturally.

I also think we're going to need more time to fully recover from the severe damage that occurred during the great recession. The complex effects and suffering of that kind of hit are well beyond the headline numbers and should be expected to take many years to heal. Economists are puzzled by wage growth not being higher (eg 3.5% vs 2.5% or similar) based on where unemployment is at - I think it's because we've only just got back to something close to a healthy labor market, whereas they think we're in the midst of something a notch or two higher than that already. To recover from economic trauma, it's not enough to just return to former headline numbers, you actually have to recover from the psychology damage (as is well known the great depression, which was of course even worse, left people traumatized for life). People behave differently after that kind of trauma, they make different choices, they fear risk more (which can lead to job stagnation, or fear to pursue better opportunities etc), and so on.

Trump may or may not unleash some so called animal spirits, in his rah rah behavior and policies (and or harm as much, from strategically poor thinking on trade), however the economy was grinding this direction likely regardless of anything the President might do. Very generally speaking, outside of insane policy settings (eg a corporate tax rate at 70%), if you manage to not upset/crash an economy for an extended period of time, and otherwise maintain a reasonable playing field, you'll see amazing economic gains over time leaving your people to their own pursuits. I regard our challenge right now, as being to sustain this tight labor market as long as possible to push beyond mere recovery and into fundamental generational improvement for everyone (everything from the median wage, to the median net wealth figures, to wages for blacks and hispanics, to what are considered minimum wage levels, and on to job benefits). The tight labor market, if sustained long enough, will claw back some of the share of profit toward labor, and I expect the wage & benefits increase over time can be considerable given the vast profit levels in corporate America today. Even if you held wages relatively steady and increased things like vacation time or maternity leave, it'd be quite an improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> low unemployment have preceded crises [https://www.theatlas.com/charts/BJ0j99abM](https://www.theatlas.com/charts/BJ0j99abM)

</comment><comment><USER21> What I gathered from this article is that there isn't enough interest in Maine made chocolate to cover decent wages. Ship production to China or Mexico like everyone else. America has become a globalist society, and that means there's no room for lower middle class jobs like the ones explored in this article.

</comment><comment><USER22> They just stopped counting the people that don want to work.... and let me tell you there are a LOT of them. Ask any police officer or firefighter about apartment complexes full of people who do not want to work, can not work because drugs, or are on disability.

<comment><USER23> Specifically, you are looking for various measures of "not in the labor force" \-- called U1 through U6.

[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm)

U6 is: Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force

The national U6 right now is 9.2 (unadjusted).

<comment><USER24> It says 8.6 on the page

<comment><USER25> dsr_ followed the column down a bit off and got the Feb 2017 seasonally adjusted number (they are one column apart) - they should really separate those better

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So even with "record-low unemployment", most people still don't make decent, living wages. At least that's what the article seems to be saying. Salaries aren't going up significantly. Workers have more choices, but clearly, even at record-low unemployment, the market fails most workers. That's an interesting insight as it might lead to more people to question the idiocy of letting chaos run markets by leaving them unregulated.

<comment><USER27> > most people still don't make decent, living wages. > the market fails most > workers.

Neither of those assertions is either in the article, or supported by fact. The vast majority of workforce members are employed and live well above the poverty line.

I truly don't understand why there seems to be a belief that every single job that exists should provide a 'living wage'. There is such as thing as a starter job, and there types of jobs that don't provide 25-50K/yr in value to either the employer or market. It's just not reasonable to presume (or enforce a policy such ) that any amount or type of work a business owner needs done should automatically result in the employee being completely taken care of.</comment></comment>


Talk to Wolfram Alpha in TeX - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2010/09/30/talk-to-wolframalpha-in-tex/

<comment><USER2> Is there a setting to make it talk back to you in TeX. If so a really neat IDE could allow you to write an equation in TeX and then query Alpha and have it solve the equation in the IDE for you.

<comment><USER3> One of the comments makes a request for TeX output, so it wouldn't surprise me if that were to show up at some point, particularly since Mathematica already deals with two way input and output of TeX. See [http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/tutorial/Generating...](http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/tutorial/GeneratingAndImportingTeX.html) or just Google 'mathematica tex output'...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it's not Turing-complete, it ain't TeX.</comment>