Show HN: My first start up (30 days in) - <AUTHOR>

I quit my job a month ago and have been heads down working on my startup. It's my first time working with Ruby or web development at all. I launched on the 7th - http://www.onefatpig.com<p>Now I'm done with the easy part (code) and working on the substantially harder part (getting users). Any advice? <comment><USER3> Great idea, can't praise it enough.

I'm wondering if you would actually make more money by only having free accounts.

You already stand to make a ton of money from affiliate commissions AND heavy cash on hand.

The value of a customer is way over $7/month just based on these two income sources alone.

Free accounts might help getting the on the fencers to sign up, while you still capture the users that would have signed up for $7/month.

Something else to think about -- If you decide to definitely go freemium, consider having a third option. There is a ton of research showing people are most likely to take the second best option given a menu of choices. Three plans makes the second best option still one that gets you paid each month.

<comment><USER4> How much money can Amazon affiliate commissions generate? A lot of bloggers say they don't make much off Amazon, but I'm wondering how much dedicated sites like this could make. Do you know of any good examples?

<comment><USER5> If your only source of income is affiliate commisions, then it is extremely risky. What happens when amazon decides they don't like your site any more,and cancels your affiliate account? Im sure you don't want to be posting here 6 months from now saying "amazon killed my startup"

<comment><USER6> If OneFatPig is bringing Amazon revenue, why would they try to kill it off? I mean, certainly there's ways to make someone mad at you, but from a business sense if OneFatPig "plays nice" I don't see why Amazon would arbitrarily do that.

<comment><USER5> Sure, Amazon shouldn't want to kill it off, but what if they do anyway? Remember the guy who posted a few weeks ago on HN about how 'google fired me'? It's pretty easy to make a small violation of the TOS without realizing it.

I'm just making a suggestion - don't put all of your eggs in one basket. If you depend on one company for 100% of your revenue (Google, Paypal, Amazon etc)that's a huge risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not sure why, but I immediately understood what the site does. Congrats on that, that's one of the most difficult parts.

Suggestion: I'd want the service to allow kids to claim things they've done to earn points, for which they'd get their piggy bank filled. Eg. did homework, cleaned room, washed car would translate to x piggy dollars, which I'd then translate to real money in their bank.

<comment><USER8> Similar immediate _click_ , I think it's a good choice of images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree with atomical - I would change the name. I actually like it, it's quite clever, but I don't think 'typical' parents would enjoy their children talking about 'one fat pig'.

Can you whitelist or blacklist products? I imagine many parents won't want their kids saving up for a hello kitty vibrator: [http://www.amazon.com/Hello- Kitty-face-Massage-Roller/dp/B00...](http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Kitty-face- Massage-Roller/dp/B0042IL6QI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1294805866&sr=8-1)

Getting users... yup, thats the hard part. Talk to some moms you know, give them some free accounts. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the world, can beat the value of word of mouth from a happy mom, and that's who you are targeting anyway.

This may seem crazy, but go to your local coffee shop, grocery store, restaurant, and see if they have a bulletin board that you can put flyers up on. Another prime mom location.

Check itunes for mom or parenting podcasts. Contact the hosts and ask if you can come on their podcast to talk about your site. Offer some free accounts for listeners.

Target geek moms?

I think you're getting the point... target mom!

<comment><AUTHOR> There is product filtering - but it works best for items with ratings (Video Games, Movies). All other products go through a blacklist - filtering out specific words (but the list itself needs improvement). The parent has control over the filtering, and can increase its restrictions with a paid account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's pretty rare that I see a startup demo'd here that I think is actually useful as opposed to just being a fad/gimmick that will disappear in a month or two. This is a really great concept and the execution really draws me in.

Congratulations on your launch. I hope you're wildly successful.

</comment><comment><USER10> I seem to be in a minority here because I actually like the name (grab 1fatpig.com whilst you're at it)

Impressive concept and execution even without you being new to web development and only working on it full time for being a month. Look and feel is great for the target audience, though I'd lose the script fonts though due to inconsistent rendering across browsers (they look awful on Firefox/Win for example) and I can't see you losing anything by changing them to something standard like italicised Georgia.

My gut feeling is that parents might baulk at the paid plan unless they're particularly generous with their allowances, but the great thing about your business model is that you should still earn off free accounts in active use via affiliate programs.

</comment><comment><USER11> I like the idea. I have been debating whether the name is too derogatory. Can you see a parent saying to another parent, Jane, have you heard about this new website called one fat pig? Maybe onebigpig.com would be better. Not sure about that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been looking at whether or not to rebrand. The initial branding was PiggyBanks. But all variations of that as a domain are parked by miserable squatters. One of them offered to sell at the 'reasonable' price of $16k.

<comment><USER12> I would try to find some means to convey that it's a virtual/online piggy bank. You know, the hip, modern piggy bank for the plugged in kid. I have no idea what terms to suggest but I think that's a key piece you need to convey: Allowance in the digital age for the really cool kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really nice site, the idea makes a lot of sense and it seems like if you can get users, it should really take off. The design seems quite good, but like some of the other commenters, the small "notice" area at the top of each page seems like it could use a little more love. I think the name is memorable, and that's probably more important than any potential offense someone might take at the name.

Out of curiosity, could you explain the different services/apis you're using to get the list of products the kids search for? Are you just using the Amazon Product API or are there other services you're hitting too?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is some mixing of data sources, and in my opinion that is the 'core value' of the software. By aggregating item data from many sources I can generate a much clearer opinion of what an item is - and whether or not it fits with a specific kid. Not all of this is visible in the UI however, and a lot of the code was just me being a CS Nerd and probably won't materialize into the visible portions of the site in the near future.

<comment><USER6> Would you mind expanding on what other sources you're using? I ask in part because I'm taking the first steps on something similar (trying to aggregate product data from various sources). My email is in my profile if you'd prefer to discuss it there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Love the idea. Chore tracking would be a really cool feature I think.

</comment><comment><USER14> very nice, very simple, good luck, congrats on quitting full time!

some hopefully constructive criticism, i think the name is a bit tongue in cheek and could offend some people, not that big an issue, perhaps it has value to help you remember the brand.

the yellow banner doesn't stand out enough on the front page, perhaps find a larger font that doesn't blend into the page so well, this is your focus point for describing the service, make sure it stands out.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would try to go anywhere where parents/kids are. Maybe you could work with a local book store that often does story time type things for kids, or even schools. We had a virtual bank in elementary school to learn about money, why not work with local schools that may or may not have it already, and supplement with your app or offer it?

</comment><comment><USER16> If you ever get the money to advertise, get this on the Dave Ramsey show. I believe he costs a pretty penny to hawk things, but this is _right_ up his street (especially if you have a mode for 'no allowance' and go 'straight commission'). Clark Howard would love this too.

</comment><comment><USER17> I feel like the Features page should be condensed somehow. There's a lot of text and images... But I like how the UI looks on those screenshots. Good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just wondering, what is your background? You say you've never done web development- have you done other types of dev work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I've got a BS CS & worked in industry as a developer for 4 years - <USER2> C & C++.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Clickable:

<http://www.onefatpig.com>

</comment><comment><USER19> Love the idea and the design</comment>


Daydreaming about the future instead of doing work today - <AUTHOR> https://www.howitactuallyworks.com/archives/future_you_masturbation.html <comment><USER2> Great piece.

Last year, I forced myself to release _something_ every two weeks -- even if it wasn't finished or was just a poorly-written blog post. I can proudly say it was one of the most productive years of my life[1]. Most of those projects won't see the light of day -- no one will care and no one will notice -- but _releasing_ is far better than endless planning.

And just to really hit it home: this year I built Lofi (a small Spotify player replacement[2]) and I shared it on reddit[3] (and on HN). But if you read most of the posts, it's a whole bunch of angry people arguing about Electron sucking, about why the app is 100mb, about how C++ and Qt would be better, etc. etc. The difference between me and those people? I'm already working on my next project ;)

[1] [https://dvt.name/2019/01/06/retrospective- stuff-2018/](https://dvt.name/2019/01/06/retrospective-stuff-2018/)

[2] [https://www.lofi.rocks/](https://www.lofi.rocks/)

[3] [https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aufj4m/lofi_a_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aufj4m/lofi_a_minimalist_spotify_player_with_webgl/)

<comment><USER3> I'm confused that so many people on this site seem to be working on ancient weak sauce computers. The difference between a 1mb and 100mb app today is nil. I run Slack, vscode, and tons of other apps. Even if they take few gigs of RAM each, there's 62 more where that came from. They all run just fine.

It's like a forum full of carpenters that are using Black and Decker tools to build houses.

<comment><USER4> What's your target audience? Who are you building apps for? Yourself, with 64GB of RAM, or much more common users with 4-16GB?

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h > or much more common users with 4-16GB?

Or the sizable portion of end-users who won't or can't upgrade past 2G; it's a pain to do that on a modern system, but it does work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe the friend just doesn't _want_ to make a Serious Business out of this yet, maybe he just enjoys having this side project. Maybe he's still refining the physical design of these signs along with the software with every one he builds. Maybe he's got enough sources of chaos and craziness in his life already from work/family/the hairbrained schemes of his buddy Trevor and he just wants a nice little hobby where he can fiddle around. Maybe he just does not _need_ a Side Hustle in his life right now.

Maybe this is just what he's playing with instead of putting together model kits, y'know?

It's quite possible to get lost in the weeds planning stuff with no forwards motion. It's also possible to make really, really expensive mistakes by plowing forwards. I've done both of those. There is an alternate reality where the friend _has_ been looking for people to make this thing fast and cheap, and is now sitting on a pile of these things that he can't sell at a price point that will break even, much less make a profit, with an order of magnitude more money than he is comfortable losing sunk into them. And maybe that reality's Trevor just wrote a blog post talking about how this friend should have done their research first, what kind of idiot doesn't do their research?

I'm not saying forging ahead is always bad. I've done it a lot in the past. Sometimes it's worked out, sometimes it hasn't. And when it doesn't work out it is _a shitload of hassle and stress_ and I can only take so much of that at once.

<comment><USER6> > I've done both of those. There is an alternate reality where the friend has > been looking for people to make this thing fast and cheap, and is now > sitting on a pile of these things that he can't sell at a price point that > will break even, much less make a profit, with an order of magnitude more > money than he is comfortable losing sunk into them.

Been there, done that.

"Customers" that love the product, at the price point of the raw materials.

Charges that come at you from nowhere because you didn't hire an import agent that knows widget X has anti-dumping duties attached to it for the next six months.

Warehouses that look good until it rains and then your whole stock is ruined. This one was actually the best thing that could happen, because between the insurance and accounting the business finally broke even and I walked away from it.

Hardware is different to software. It's all downside all the way. The only thing I learned is that you should do the most pessimistic accounting you possibly can for sales and manufacture and then divide the first by 10 and multiple the second by 10 and you will be right for what will happen in the first year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Emailed someone where a call would be better?

Better for you? Or for them?

Funny how you can read something, mostly agree and then see an example and nope right out of the whole idea because the example tells you the author has an entirely different set of what 'valuable' is, compared to you.

Maybe doing the 'hard thing' of jumping straight into action is good in some cases... but, mostly, it's not.

Plan first. Act second. Evaluate third.

If you miss any of the steps, or get stuck at any of the steps you're doing it wrong.

I contend the authors supposition that most people get stuck on step 1 is wrong.

Most people _I know_ get stuck on step 2, and give up without trying to iterate on what they were trying to do, because they didn't understand that maybe step 1 didn't come up with a perfect plan the first time around.

Sure, maybe it's cool to have a step 0, which is 'try it right now!' to give you some idea & experience on how to get started.

...but the basic contention I this article; "the best thing to do is just to do _something_ right now"; is wrong, and most modern learning & self development frameworks will back that assertion.

Isn't there some famous fallacy thing about this being how terrible political decisions are made?

<comment><USER8> >Plan first. Act second. Evaluate third.

Bingo. Why not plan? Also why not day dream sometimes? Some of the best days I've had are also one of when I pause to take a stock. Once I just took a notebook (physical) and went to a park. It was the best planning day, helping me set future direction for next 6 months. Also Bill Gates is(/was) famous for taking reading/thinking retreats.

Also your whole comment also summarizes my take on the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The human mind is not a business. Fantasizing about the future is actually integral to the functioning of the human mind. It builds neural pathways and releases dopamine that makes you feel good about your choice, motivating you to execute.

Without the fantasy, the reality would never come.

<comment><USER10> > motivating you to execute

The article is discussing fantasizing that does not result in action

<comment><USER9> No the article is saying don't ever waste time fantasizing because it's the same as writing new features in code that no one will use. It specifically calls out things like buying workout clothes before you work out, or getting a new journal before you start journaling.

<comment><USER11> Maybe you missed the point of the article. The author is describing a common issue where people have lots of ideas, plan them out in their heads and get the reward in form of pleasure (anticipation of success, power, beauty, anything). They don't imagine or plan actually doing the work, they plan for wonderful outcomes. They never do what's necessary and become quite frustrated, not knowing why. There was even psychological research into this phenomenon if I recall correctly , and it yielded the somewhat surprising result that this is a strong habitual behavior and thus fairly hard to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is a rift between people, where there are some who can _do_ just about anything, but they lack _great ideas_ (which makes them unhappy), and there are people who have _many great ideas_ without the ability or determination to _implement_ them (which makes them unhappy). People who can do both are really, really rare.

Both former kinds of people struggle in their own way. Daydreamers don't work, implementors can't dream. They plan, they invent, they struggle and fail. I wonder if there is any skill set behind that, at all. If you can learn to dream, or learn to _just do it_ , at all.

<comment><USER13> People who lack great ideas fail to do anything at all. What they don't understand is that ideas come from doing things.

<comment><USER14> That depends. I'm in academia. I'm surrounded by MSc and PhD students. Some of them are truly creative, but they are the minority. Most of them are happy to implement an idea that was assigned to them by a professor they're working with, or make small incremental extensions to existing research. In this line of work, what matters most is getting publications. I would say (this is my personal impression) that many successful academics are not creative types, they conservative and incremental, but most importantly, hard working, detail oriented and determined.

All that being said, I wish academia was more about really thinking out of the box, playing with ideas and trying things that are a little more "out there", but from what I've seen in the last decade, it isn't really the case, at least not in STEM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Really great piece, take the time to read it.

I've been quite prone to this, and one thing that's helped is building systems vs. goals, per Scott Adams[1][2]. If you read many stories of successful people, you see a pattern in having habits or systems that were built at some point that lead to those successes, as opposed to setting a specific goal and trying to plan around that.

[1][https://blog.dilbert.com/2013/11/18/goals-vs- systems/](https://blog.dilbert.com/2013/11/18/goals-vs-systems/)

[2][https://outline.com/TGYvt2](https://outline.com/TGYvt2)

</comment><comment><USER16> I noticed many people doing the same thing with "to do"/"to read" lists. They'll add items to their lists thinking they'll get around to doing them _some_ day, not realizing that future me is probably just as lazy as present me, and if I were going to do something, I would have done it now.

So, todo lists become a bit of intellectual masturbation in the sense of "oh I'm not putting this off, I'm definitely going to do it, since it's on my todo list!"

I have on my todo list (see the irony) to build a mobile todo list app where tasks will disappear if not finished in a while, along with some other bells and whistles (they'll all move to another screen where you can't remove them and they'll mock you for ever), mostly as an art piece on this exact phenomenon rather than a useful app.

<comment><USER17> I've found that todo lists only work if they're put in context of larger goals and you have a system to repeatedly, frequently pop() the top of the list. It's OK (and common!) to have a todo list of 100 things, as long as you give yourself time to think about prioritization of the tasks. Someone on here recommended "Work Clean" by Charnas. It's a little fluffy at the end, but he does provides a structure with which to place and schedule tasks that I found pretty useful called Daily Meeze. It's just meta-planning (plan/schedule 30 minutes out of every day to plan/schedule). Super simple, yet effective.

<comment><USER18> This is a useful way to handle tasks. It sounds like backlog grooming in scrum. It's nice to just write down the various ideas you get, regularly prioritize them, then grab a few of them per sprint to finish and deploy to prod at the end of that sprint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This piece and its ilk are the real click bait of HN. Nothing new or interesting said here, just another "fail fast and early" piece that misses the bigger picture: namely, that unless you just want to make money—which is cool—failing fast and early is not what everyone is about. Finding a markov chain to a product is definitely a way to get there, if you just want to find some product, any product, that will sell to somebody somewhere. But okay, I've read this piece a hundred times. I get it. Please stop writing it, or at least please stop upvoting it.

<comment><USER20> Maybe it's coincidence but IIRC there's some scientific literature that suggests simply imagining success can trigger similar reward pathways as actually achieving success.

This in turn may sap motivation. (Not sure if this consequence is part of the science.) The remedy according to some sources is to avoid imagining success or even the end state of your project. To maintain perseverance, try to stay focused on the most immediate problems and potential future hurdles.

<comment><USER19> Your comment should have been the article.

But regarding:

> The remedy according to some sources is to avoid imagining success or even > the end state of your project.

Is it really the remedy? I agree the problem you state is real, but how does this, or all other possible ways to keep your eyes on the prize, the "remedy"?

Growing up I was on a competitive swim team, and one of the exercises we did before meets was imagining the whole race, imagining how we would execute our performance from start to finish. You would imagine the start, how you feel fresh and easy, and then the middle, as you begin to feel yourself tire, and then the end, when you're exhausted but then the reward of finishing. It's about the whole race, I think, and day dreaming about the end doesn't have to be so bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Article like this is like how a fortuneteller works. It's vague and can be interpreted in many ways.

> Put off the correct, hard work for the easier, less effective work?

What's correct? How does that not conflicts with "future you" problem?

You know that any one who is having the "future you problem" is also doing that while thinking that they taking the correct hard work approach, right?

It's just one of those idea where you can just rationalize whether something fits the philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Complained about your dating prospects instead of making yourself more > dateable?

Being dateable and actually finding people to date are two very different things.

<comment><USER23> The former is almost always helpful . Rather than lamenting about the latter.

<comment><USER22> Makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Compare the classic Ze Frank bit on 'brain crack':

[https://youtu.be/0sHCQWjTrJ8](https://youtu.be/0sHCQWjTrJ8)

</comment><comment><USER25> NOTE TO ALL: The use of the word "mas...bation" will automatically kill your comment. Might want to censor yourself, as silly (and understandable, in most contexts) as it is.

<comment><USER26> The use of the "mas...bation" word also automatically meant I will not forward the link to co-workers or friends. So the author lost many potential readers from it.

<comment><USER27> But it most eloquently describes the problem. We shouldn't have to self-censor to get passed some prudish filter on a corporate network on which the reader is probably already not supposed to be reading for fun.

<comment><USER28> It's anything but eloquent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > You can picture how you'll look and feel, the money in your bank account, > the respect of your friends and peers.

This is visualizing rewards rather than the thing itself. In contrast, visualizing the product you want, or people getting it (i.e the business operation you want) is inspiring.

The difference is conceiving of yourself as a producer or as a consumer (of rewards).

</comment><comment><USER30> In the personal development/emotional healing technique I've most used in the past few years, this concept is called "living in the future" and it's most certainly been a deeply ingrained tendency for myself and others I know, and is critical to overcome for one to make tangible progress in life.

A personal development coach I know trained me to stop talking to others about the successful things I plan to do or expect to do, the theory being that the subconscious/unconscious mind can't tell the difference between talking about them and actually accomplishing them.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's not this simple. Failure can be the result of too much planning and research as well as too little. Programmers in particular may be more prone to planning too much rather than doing too much but it's possible to overcorrect. The general advice to try something and move forward when you're stuck in analysis paralysis is useful and often good but it's also true that plenty of people put plenty of time and effort into things that ultimately were a waste of time and could probably have been avoided with a bit more planning or research up front.

<comment><USER32> "When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep." Ursula K. Le Guin

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If this was a form of cancer I would be Stage 4 and getting my affairs in order.

So after years procrastinating on a book, doing research and taking notes but not publishing one word I started blogging. I've only written 4 blog posts and they get decent traffic. I was surprised. I'm trying to apply "do the work" to other areas too.

<comment><USER34> also honestly curious. any specific efforts to get traffic or did you just post away and let traffic come organically?

<comment><USER35> I wonder about this. Let's say I create a really good blog about some niche subject, but I don't promote it in any way, so that no one links to it or even knows about it. In such case, if no page on the Internet links to it, will it even by indexed by the Google Search?

<comment><USER10> > if no page on the Internet links to it, will it even by indexed by the > Google Search?

Probably not. To fix this problem, you create a sitemaps.xml on your server and then give Google/Yahoo/etc. the link to it.

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156184?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156184?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If this article resonated with that tuning fork in your head, you might be interested in "What's Your Future Worth?" by Peter Neuwirth.

[https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/whats-your- future/97816...](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/whats-your- future/9781626563018/)

[https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Your-Future-Worth- Decisions/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Your-Future-Worth- Decisions/dp/1626563012)

</comment><comment><USER37> I always wonder if people like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk daydream of their ideal future like most of us seem to do. They definitely seem to _act_ on their vision more, but do they daydream as much as the rest of us?

<comment><USER38> Acting on your vision is easier for people when they have access to large pools of money. I'm not sure about Mark but Elon seemed like an entrepreneur when I read about his early adulthood. Not an inventor, just someone who found ways to make money. Then when he became rich he became a visionary.

<comment><USER39> > Acting on your vision is easier for people when they have access to large > pools of money.

This is a highly oversimplified vision. It's true that Elon has way more money at his disposal. But it's also true that he had the guts to put all of it on the line for his vision.

If I was that rich (after PayPal), I would put money on the side that I would never touch, and then try the business thing with the rest of it. I think most of us would do that, or even retire at that point.

Putting all your money on the line (and let's face it, if you have millions, you fall from higher than if you only have $100) really shows how dedicated you are to your vision.

That's why we are talking about Elon here, and not about you or me.

<comment><USER40> I don't see the risk. Even in the worst case scenario he can still become a middle manager in some random company and get by until retirement.

<comment><USER41> _You_ don't see that as a risk because it's not an outcome that you object to. Many people would see that as failure and thus anything that might end up with that outcome is risky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > Whether you have a Tesla in your brain or a Tesla in real life doesn't make > a difference in how happy you are.

This quote from the end of the article reminded me of the famous chimpanzee experiment where two chimps were hooked up to a brain scan, one was given a banana to enjoy the other just allowed to watch, but both seemed to have the same "pleasure zone" of the brain light up.

</comment><comment><USER43> Look past the title. It's a good article.

<comment><USER4> I found it confusing. Article says "Do the work" but gave 2 choices for the friend: "What's the priority? Writing software for future use cases, or finding an assembler to build the signs for him?" If the friend wants to grow the project into a business, this is a false dichotomy. The friend should be doing both: adding value to his project by doing what he does best (enhance the product offering) as well as delegating jobs that someone else can do (find a builder). Either choice is "doing the work". Also, the friend has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time if he wants to expand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Daydreaming is the first step, necessary and extremely useful.Alone on her own the visionary role does not go far enough though.

What happens is that usually the capability of visionary (seeing what does not exist yet in front of you like it is real)is related with your personality.

People who has not this capability could not really see what does not exist, but they are essential for following the roadmap(tracker) the good visionary can design.

The tracker personality on her own can't really go far enough too. This person does not really know where to go.

You can do both roles yourself, the visionary and the tracker, but that is very hard because you have to switch roles, almost like Mr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. And you will have a very strong tendency towards one of them.

Or you can partner with someone who is a "natural" tracker if you are a natural "visionary". The sum of the parts will be much better than the individual parts.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't know. I've lived what the article describes and there's truth there.

OTOH not everyone is required to actually manifest all their dreams. Maybe it's more fun and satisfying to tinker endlessly without actually starting a real business.

Yes, it's a problem that people live in the future. But also not everyone is cut out to follow through on what they imagine.

For me, 99% of what I imagine is just an excuse to tinker, but I've followed through on a tiny subset of things and that was great too. I like knowing I actually "did it." I like pointing to the accomplishment.

But there's definitely a joy and peace in daydreaming and endlessly tinkering without ruining everything by setting yourself up to argue with manufacturers, look for funding, manage employees, live out of a tour bus, or any of the other practical realities that go along with pursuing your dreams in a professional capacity.

</comment><comment><USER46> > What we should all do is pick the path that has the best 3 feet

I hope I'm reading this quote correctly. This doesn't feel entirely right. Short vs long term gratification is probably a much longer topic but I still think a modicum of effort in getting the pros and cons for the most obvious of choices is helpful. Certainly more than just picking the choice that sounds good at the start.

Most long term projects have no immediate gratification. Based on the advice above alone whenever you have some money you should pick the path that provides the best immediate benefit and turn it into wine or icecream :).

Edit.

> In my friend's case: follow the money!

The money you're definitely already making or the money you could possibly be making?

</comment><comment><USER47> > Started a business by making a website instead of finding a customer?

How do you go about finding a customer without at least a prototype? You need to do market research, sure, but how do you get a customer without a product?

<comment><USER48> Read this for example: [https://lifehacker.com/im-joel-gascoigne-and-this-is- the-sto...](https://lifehacker.com/im-joel-gascoigne-and-this-is-the-story- behind-buffer-1446437914)

<comment><USER47> Wow. Great post. Thanks for sharing.

The heavy personal touch at first reminds me of PG's quote: "Do things that don't scale"

I've recently launched a product, [https://bugbucket.io](https://bugbucket.io) that solves a problem I have but I'm struggling to find that first customer.

The whole lightweight approach makes sense but now the problem is identifying whether the experiment is a failure or just needs to get in front of more folks...

<comment><USER48> You're welcome.

It takes some time to get used to lean principles, especially if you have a dev background (as you do it seams). It's the opposite of "build it and they will come" mantra, and dev people are always like "how do you mean sell it before it's built?!" But it works. And it's a way better approach.

As for your tool, if you built it because you had the same problem, you are in the perfect position. You should understand very well the pain points, who has them, how it affects their everyday work and from there it should be easy to make tactics on how to approach potential users, what are the best selling points.

They say (and I completely agree) that the best sales person in a startup are founders, because they know everything about the idea, they are passionate about it and they don't give up easily.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> For people turned off by the title: "Future You Masturbation gives you the pleasure of all your future accomplishments with none of the work. It's your brain tricking you into something that feels good today in exchange for lost meaning and purpose and accomplishment in the future."

It actually sounds a lot like the concept of not telling people about dieting or whatever long-term task you're engaging in due to the dopamine rush from telling people rather than accomplishing things.

</comment><comment><USER50> The tone of this post is so superior and dickish I'd rather not listen to the author.

<comment><USER51> Good advice is good advice, even if it is poorly delivered.

<comment><USER52> I disagree. As Marshall McLuhan said, "the medium is the message." Poorly delivered messages are prone to be lost as noise.

<comment><USER53> This critique is one of rhetoric - which is not what McLuhan meant in the concept contained in that quote at all.

Your complaint seems to be that the use of a sexual metaphor affects the ethos of the speaker in the eyes of some.

That metaphor is part of the message, regardless of whether or not you like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This was good motivation. I've been editing a book that I've been working on for over a year. I submitted it to a literary agent just now. It took less than an hour. I'll probably fail. But I'm living in the now.

I also made the website first ;) - [https://www.burnfastburnbright.com/](https://www.burnfastburnbright.com/)

</comment><comment><USER55> This article hits me right in the gut because I'm guilty of every one of those HAVE YOU EVERs. Ouch.

Even as we speak, I'm here commenting away (why?) on Hacker News when I should be publishing posts, building a list, growing my business so I can find a product in the service and getting it done already. Uuugh, just saying that makes me feel terrible. How do I overcome this...

<comment><USER56> You could find some people to work together with. In my experience, it makes a bit easier to keep going because you are supporting and motivating each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Fuck myself, literally. This is me for the past 20 years. Imagining myself writing GPL licensed software, in Clojure, using Vim through an actual (not emulated) Linux terminal, for the domain I have the most knowledge, making millions.

:%s/Clojure/IDEALISTIC_LANGUAGE_OF_12_YEARS_AGO/g for older projects.

<comment><USER58> > in Clojure, using Vim

Ouch, shoudn't it be Emacs? /s

<comment><USER57> I tried so hard to use Emacs, the pinky pain is real :) I know about parinfer but, oddly, Vim has better tools for navigating through parens et al out of the box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> When it comes to masturbation narrowly defined, most people now accept that it is not harmful or sinful. Nor is it a sign of a failed sex life. I believe that we should have the same attitude towards more general forms of self- gratification.

<comment><USER60> What's your source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> The title needs to have NSFW appended to it. I just realized I clicked on a URL (from my work computer) with a word that is probably on IT's blacklist somewhere.

<comment><USER28> Not actually blacklisted here, but the usage is frequent and totally unnecessary. An unfortunate detraction from an otherwise good article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> How is it related to masturbation I do not understand.

<comment><USER20> It's a euphemism for self-gratification and self-indulgence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Does anyone know where I can buy one of those signs?

<comment><USER64> What happens when you get disturbed even with the sign on?

<comment><USER63> Same as without the sign. It could be a useful communication tool though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Paul-ish One related study[1] found that when you tell people about your goal, you are less likely to actually achieve your task.

[1] [http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Se...](http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Seifert_Michalski_When_Intentions_.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER65> The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

If you love this article you will love this book.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why did this get penalized from #1 down to ~15?

</comment><comment><USER66> Yikes. This is a really good one.

</comment><comment><USER67> This hits home. I am personally a culprit in daydreaming and building castles in air.

</comment><comment><USER68> definitely the stupidest title i've ever seen

</comment><comment><USER69> "Emailed someone where a call would be better?"

There are no such circumstances. Fuck voice calls.</comment>


Leaving Angular - <AUTHOR> http://eisenbergeffect.bluespire.com/leaving-angular

<comment><AUTHOR> This was posted a few days after he wrote up a fairly long article explaining the direction Angular 2.0 was taking and the reason behind that direction: [http://eisenbergeffect.bluespire.com/all-about- angular-2-0/](http://eisenbergeffect.bluespire.com/all-about-angular-2-0/)</comment>


Show HN: Famous brands reviews stats - <AUTHOR> https://feedcheck.co/widgets?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> We are waiting for feedback

<comment><USER2> You've submitted your website 15 times in the last 30 days. My feedback is to hold off and re-submit when there's a big change or announcement.</comment></comment>


Abacus (YC W14) Wants to Make Expense Reports Obsolete - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/18/abacus/

<comment><USER2> I agree with the other commenter that real-time daily approval doesn't seem to be a big selling point (I'm not sure it's even worth mentioning in marketing, because it might actually elicit negative reactions).

But the idea that the employee gets the money immediately/overnight upon approval at the end of the trip, or maybe weekly (for long trips), instead of waiting weeks for a paper check, is huge. As is offloading a lot of the accounting 'grunt work' of it to another company. And snapping photos of receipts with location and time data and categories directly attached, and not having to worry about where they're stored (it's all in the app and on servers) is a huge convenience too.

Sounds like an exciting idea.

<comment><USER3> We use Concur at work and it's pretty painless. I scan most of my receipts with the app, usually in one big batch at the airport while I'm waiting around, do cleanup the next day (taxi/uber fare or parking receipts from the airport or whatever), and the reimbursement is included on my 2nd next paycheck at latest, which is direct-deposited anyway.

Maybe the incumbents are good for the enterprise and Abacus is for small/medium business?

<comment><USER4> With Abacus, you'd never have to worry about scanning receipts at the airport and "cleaning up" the next day to fit all your expenses into an arbitrary report because it was so quick and easy to do in real time, that not only did you submit it when it happened and throw away the receipt, but the money was in your bank account before you even got home from your business trip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, I'm a manager, and the _last_ thing I want is to have fifteen different notifications coming to me in real-time asking me to approve one of my team member's gas receipt. I'd much rather get the batch after the trip. Not sure how this would be an improvement on the manager end.

<comment><USER6> Plus if you're _really_ keen to approve expense receipts in real time then the Oracle/Blackberry combo works fine.

Funnily enough the _least_ painful expense report I've ever had to send simply involved filling in a spreadsheet, which lacked the abundance of compulsory fields that software designed for proper expense auditing seems to have.

The automated bank account monitoring sounds like the biggest potential timesaver, but it also sounds like something I really don't want to grant to my employer.

<comment><USER7> Yea — we're trying to avoid the bajillion separate fields you have to enter, typical of Oracle or Concur. We try to do some smart things — for example if you're at a place (gas station, restaurant, etc.) you can select the place from our 'nearby' list with one tap, and then we're working on using that location data to automatically categorize the transaction, put it on a map, etc.

I hear you on not wanting to grant your employer access to all your card data. Your employer will only be able to see the transactions that you pass through to them as business expenses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The New York-based startup is competing in the same space as expense report > software such as Concur and Expensify. Abacus founders Omar Qari, Ted Power, > and Joshua Halickman say their service differentiates by making it easy for > managers approve expenses in real-time through its app, instead of in > batches at their desks.

This just isn't true. You _can_ approve expenses through Concur's app: [https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile](https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile)

<comment><USER4> You can approve expense 'Reports' through Concur's app, which you likely won't see a manager do more than once a month because your company has the pleasure of paying $11 per report.

Abacus is built to submit and approve expenses in real time, and we'd never charge you for that speed and convenience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have half paid attention to this space but can never quite figure out what everything does.

Xero has an app which scans receipts but as far as I can tell doesn't do expenses.

Shoeboxed does tonnes of stuff with receipts (including parsing them and integrating with Xero) but doesn't seem to do expenses (is that right?)

All I want is one app that integrates with Xero, scans a receipt, parses it and lets me classify it as a business receipt or a personal one (to go on an expense form). I know that's not what this app does (it's expenses only) but it feels like it should already be out there - am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER10> I hope they're right. I hate expense reports. It would be even better to autosort the credit card data. "You use the card, and just tell us what's not a business expense. We'll figure out where it goes."

<comment><USER11> Check out [https://expensebot.com](https://expensebot.com) :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have known the Abacus guys for awhile. Their product is cool, solves a real problem, and has seen some great traction. It's a classic innovators solution type product: limit the feature set, have a wonderful product, and sell slightly down market. I can't wait to see the progress they've made by alumni demo day -- I think it's going to be amazing.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't see much of a value add over Concur ([https://www.concur.com/](https://www.concur.com/)).

Using it on my iPhone combined with a corporate Amex account I can import my credit card transactions and tie them to expenses, snap photos of receipts, etc. I can easily add receipts as non-Amex expenses and it tracks it in the report.

At the end of my trip my manager approves the report and I get two disbursements - one a direct deposit to me for personal expenses and one an automatic corporate payment to Amex to balance the corporate card.

Last time the roundtrip from trip end to payment was 48 hours.

</comment><comment><USER14> Our company has been using Nexonia for a few years. Not to say there isn't room for competition, but I don't see any differentiator.

One feature I would like to see is better integration with my calendar. Nexonia will figure out my mileage based on the addresses I enter, but it would be nice if would simply pull this information in from my calendar, and perhaps take a guess at what meeting I just attended based on my current location.

</comment><comment><USER15> I work in an industry in which it's extremely important to justify business expenses to regulators months or years after the transaction takes place. The ability to build a complete, real-time narrative around expenses, instead of jotting a few notes about a receipt two weeks later would be so helpful.

It seems that your focus is exclusively on small businesses. Is that the case?

<comment><USER4> That sounds like a great use case for Abacus. We do target small businesses for the most part, but the only thing holding back a company from signing up with Abacus is if they want a whole bunch of custom accounting work done, which we won't do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So if I read that right, if the company I'm working for wants to use this system then I have to give Abacus direct access to my bank account. Why wouldn't it integrate with the company's existing system? I hope that's just a bad writeup on techcrunch's part. Or I hope nobody I work for ever requires me to use this.

<comment><USER7> Your bank account information never touches Abacus's servers. [http://support.abacus.com/hc/en-us/articles/200792470-Is- Aba...](http://support.abacus.com/hc/en-us/articles/200792470-Is-Abacus- secure-)</comment></comment>


Coding Blind - <AUTHOR> http://vivekhaldar.tumblr.com/post/1243047026/coding-blind

<comment><USER2> I agree. We are. That's why when the company that I work for hired some guys that were better than me, I was very excited.

See, when I first applied, I was looking for a junior position where I could learn from others. It turned out I was the only developer.

I did well enough to keep things going, and I learned on my own as I went along, but I kept wanting that mentor.

I did learn quite a lot from those guys before they quit, but I definitely could have learned more.

It just so happens that one of those guys also runs a coding dojo here in town. It's just a Meetup group where coders get together and take turns programming, 1 at the helm and 1 as co-pilot, with everyone else watching. After a few minutes, co-pilot become pilot and someone from the rest comes up to be co-pilot.

You get to watch the pilot code, and give suggestions as the co-pilot. Everyone learns and improves.

More junior programmers need to realize these things exist and take advantage of them.

And BTW, carpenters learn the same way we do. Either practicing on their own, or on-the-job. A teacher can tell you how to use the tools, and even grade you on projects made with them, but they can't teach you nearly as well as actually doing it over and over.</comment>


The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/546590/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I read this and it seems to make a lot of good points..However, I'm not sure if the fact that I'm reading this at 2am instead of studying for my Spanish and Discrete Math exams validates or discredits the argument. I plan to review it again in a week when I can think straight.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what the net effect is from electronic job applications and the addition of the college degree check box; removing the human element. Then later filters which hiring managers use to set requirements for positions which turn away a fair amount of people from even applying. Is this when credentialism and education inflation began to run away?

Looking at archive.org, Facebook in 2006 said something along the lines of "A degree in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), or equivalent work experience," but in early 2007 job listings contained "BS or BFA in any field" or "M.S. Computer Science or related field" [0][1].

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20060203042947/http://www.facebo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060203042947/http://www.facebook.com:80/jobs.php) [1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20070210022307/http://www.facebo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070210022307/http://www.facebook.com:80/jobs.php)

edit: where->when

<comment><USER4> The reason they can use check boxes is as an easy filter, as a credential arms race has made so many certified applicants, and the mean ability in that pool is higher as Caplan points out (mostly due to selection, not by learning).

Also instead of being hired by a senior worker, you are hired via human resources.

It's much easier for HR to require a degree than verifying abilities for a particular role they have only surface level understanding of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Education inflation is difficult to solve when assessing the value of "education/experience currency" means having to consider "exchange rates" between different fields (see CS vs 'Computer Engineering') and institutions (potential degree mill, boot camp, well known university?). The opportunity for arbitrage and dumping "education currency" into the market is really huge so long as we see "education" as a single currency rather than a collection of different ones. It would be insanity to treat all fiat currency as one unit of value, one country deciding to print more money directly causing inflation for the whole world. Why should education be treated any differently as a market?

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this is a very good point that needs to be explored more.

"The college-for-all mentality has fostered neglect of a realistic substitute: vocational education."

</comment><comment><USER7> Education should not be about marketable skills, and this is all this article talks about...</comment>


Ask HN: User Privacy Litigation? - d--b Hi, it seems that these days, you can't buy anything on the internet without creating an account that asks for your email address. When I do this, I religiously make sure I uncheck the "do you want to receive news about xxx" button. But apparently, this gets ignored quite a lot, and I end up receiving tons of crap in my mailbox.
My question is: is there a point in trying to litigate this? I mean, can I get some compensation from people spamming me while I didn't want to? Obviously this is not worth going through a lawyer, but if I can automate the filing of the complain, and hope to make $50 each time I get an email I didn't solicit, that'd be definitely worth the trouble.
Similarly, I often close accounts, but I'm pretty sure that no company out there actually deletes my data. Is there a way to enforce this? <comment><AUTHOR> Are you in the US or in Europe? I'll answer with an EU perspective since I'm more familiar with the situation there.

The "best" course of action is to file complaints with your country's privacy regulator. I say "best" in quotes because by the looks of it nobody actually gives a shit about enforcing the GDPR and the regulation is flawed in the sense that you can't actually sue a company for violating it.

In order to file a complaint you must first get in touch with the offending company, raise your concerns, and if they don't give you a satisfactory response _only then_ can you actually raise a formal complaint with the regulator. Of course, the problem here is that even if they stop spamming you it doesn't guarantee they've actually stopped spamming everyone else, and you can't tell unless you take time to manually create new accounts to prove whether they're still in violation.

Unfortunately there isn't really a way to get money out of them for their violations. Best way is to name & shame, refuse to do business with them and/or hit them where it hurts by redirecting any further spam/marketing to someone high up in the company to annoy them directly and waste their precious time.</comment>


Ask HN: Prototyping real objects, like vehicles, in software. Is it possible? - <AUTHOR> The title is self-explanatory. <comment><USER2> Software like AutoCAD and Solidworks have been used for decades. Not only can you construct objects, you can do sophisticated tests like wind loading simulations and stress tests.

</comment><comment><USER3> Design simulation has a long history in manufacturing and construction.</comment>


Automated Invoicing for BaseCRM - <AUTHOR> https://paycove.io <comment><AUTHOR> Paycove allows your sales team to automatically generate and collect invoices from your deal-flow on BaseCRM. We've worked carefully with our clients to build a product that saves time and reduces your invoice collection timelines.

Once a deal is moved to a "pending close" stage in Base, an invoice is automatically created. All relevant information is pulled directly from Base into the contract, which is then sent to the primary contact via email, and noted on your Base Deal for easy reference.

Paycove uses Stripe as it's payment processor, allowing you to collect, refund, and monitor payments from Paycove. You may also handle charges very granularly from Stripe's Dashboard. Stripe's security measures are best in the industry, making sure that your customers' information is safe.

Paycove also stays in sync with your BaseCRM and Stripe accounts to give you an overview of useful statistics about your invoices. Monitor your conversion rate, and average time-to-payment from your Paycove Dashboard.

We offer a free 14 day trial to test it out.

We love hearing from you, so please reach out if you have any comments or questions!</comment>


NASA Will Announce a Major Mars Discovery on Monday - <AUTHOR> http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-announce-major-discovery-regarding-mars-monday <comment><USER2> _" One of my interest is understanding the formation mechanism of Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL). RSL are active features on Mars that might require flowing water. On Mars, they form and grow during warm seasons and disappear during cold seasons. They recur over multiple years in generally the same location. I use remote sensing instruments on board various Mars orbiting space crafts to understand their geological/hydrological nature. Additionally, I use data from CRISM onboard MRO to understand its formation mechanism."_ ~ [http://www.lujendraojha.net/band-horizon/](http://www.lujendraojha.net/band- horizon/)

Luju Ojha is on this announcement. Another hint is this article in 2011 suggesting the possibility of liquid water in _" warmer seasons on Mars"_. ~ [https://nepaliblogger.com/news/nepali-scientist-lujendra- ojh...](https://nepaliblogger.com/news/nepali-scientist-lujendra-ojha-spots- possible-water-on-mars/2793/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Will they announce they've found an alien robot meeting with one of our robots?</comment>


Announcing Shadowbind: Radically Simple Web Components - <AUTHOR> https://blog.flennik.com/announcing-shadowbind-radically-simple-web-components-cd367430d5d7 <comment> takahiro-saeki This article is really understandable for me. It's especially because it's happened when I just try to use "brand new framework or library". We need to configure local setup like webpack or something like that. Parcel or zero config local environment might help it though, ES5 doesn't have a feature of classes which is ES2015's feature definitely. If you have used web components on parcel bundler, you should have seen error because babel transpiles to ES5, even if you are using custom element V1. I totally wanna say, we need to know if we just want to try new things for front end. So, I felt it's understandable for me. But I love Javascript.</comment>


Ask HN : How to get good at topcoder/google code jam ? - <AUTHOR>

I have been trying these competitions for sometime now but never got beyond the moderate level. Seeing code from people like ACRush and Petr makes me wonder if one can ever develop this talent or if one is just born with it.
And it not that I don't understand basic building blocks of these programs like dynamic programming or graph algorithms, but the way they get applied in the problem just bends my mind. So concretely what things can I do to make myself better at these compitions.
I do understand practice is fundamental. If right now I am from 0 to 10 I am because of that but anything apart from that like books, courses etc. <comment><USER2> Although you understood the importance of practice, I still want to reiterate it. Practice is the key! As far as I know, ACRush and Petr have many years of experience of practicing and competing in serious algorithmic contests such as IOI, ACM, etc. They have solved thousands of algorithmic problems and counting. Through that hard working process, they polish their problem solving and coding skill to the very high level as you know. I am not sure hard working is enough to reach the level of Petr's or ACRush's but I believe it can push you further than you think you can be. Here are my concrete suggestions:

1) Read relevant chapters in CLRS (Introduction to Algorithms, kind of bible textbook).

2) Try to solve as many problems as you can in:

<http://acm.uva.es/> (mix, some hard)

<http://acm.timus.ru/> (mix, some hard)

<http://www.spoj.pl/> (mix, many hard)

<http://acm.sgu.ru/> (mix, many hard)

Topcoder.com (of course)

3) Solve the problems first then read experts' code to learn coding skill from them. Petr publishes his own TC screencasts in his blog: <http://petr- mitrichev.blogspot.com/> You can learn a lot from watching them.

4) Practice consistently and never give up.

Good luck.</comment>


The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver Anniversary Edition) - <AUTHOR> http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Programming_Psychology.html <comment><AUTHOR> Somehow I missed this update of one of the real classics until now. Just ordered it from Amazon. I highly recommend it.</comment>


If you do self driving cars, you do not need a lot of CSS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/commaai/web/blob/master/positions.html#L4-L7 <comment><USER2> I would have just used <pre> :)</comment>


EU to Telecoms companies: Try charging Google and we'll take action - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/news/eu-to-telecoms-companies-try-charging-google-and-well-take-action-20100414/

<comment><USER2> I don't understand the argument the telecoms are trying to make here. On the ISP side, the end user has already paid for the bandwidth. Google, or anyone else they're engaging in data transfer with has also paid some network operator for bandwidth. Said network operators have some sort of peering agreement. Under what theory could it possibly be fair to charge Google at both ends?

<comment><USER3> The other part I don't understand is how the telecoms think they're actually going to get Google to pay this in the first place. If they tell Google they won't carry the Google traffic over their connections if they don't pay (sounds a bit like blackmail?) I'm sure Google would just say "Ok, see you later!". The telecoms that do that would just end up losing customers because really, who would want a connection that's either: a) filtered in general or b) filtered from Google traffic?

<comment><USER4> While I tend to agree, that tactic can backfire if the ISP's get together and present a unified front. If Google is only avail on 1/5 of the major ISP's, Yahoo or whoever pays up will see a crapload of new business. It's much easier for an end user to simply switch to using Yahoo! than to switch ISP's (for example I basically have no other choice for high speed other than Comcast)

<comment><USER5> Google is so ubiquitous to people's web use now it would only take one to not join the filtering for the idea to collapse.

XYZ ISP would have a killer selling point ("we have Google!") and would almost certainly make a killing...

<comment><USER6> Honestly sounds like some sort of regulation is necessary, maybe?

(– edit: could you please explain why that seems wrong or like a trollish comment to you?)

<comment><USER7> The comment to which you are replying offers a bit of reasoning as to why a cartel against Google would fail even without regulation: any defectors would have a big advantage in the marketplace.

Against that, you offered an assertion without reasoning -- "some sort of regulation is necessary". Your assertion is wrapped in vaguely dismissive filler words -- "honestly sounds like" and "maybe?" -- that suggest you think your assertion is so self-evident no one could contest it.

Perhaps that's not what you meant; but the second possible reading is that you're not taking any stand at all, just repeating (5 levels deep) one contested opinion, "maybe". Either way, it's not adding info or novelty... which can draw downvotes.

<comment><USER6> A market where one market participant can, well, force other market participants to carry their content free of charge sounds to me like a failed market. That's why I asked whether regulation might be something to counter that.

I don't know whether it is. I don't even know if my assumptions are correct. Maybe this is no failed market at all and it's just normal and good that ISPs have no-charge peering agreements with Google.

Sometimes a question is just a question and not some veiled attempt at taking a stand :)

<comment><USER8> That's not what's happening here at all. While Google might or might not have peering agreements in Europe like they do here in the US. Google isn't free loading anywhere. It either pays someone to carry it's traffic from it's data center to the next ISP or it already has that infrastructure and trades bandwidth on its network for traffic on the other ISP network. Since google bought a large chunk of dark fiber, they have lots of capacity and are making a sweet deal, it seems, to other ISP which allows them to pay nothing almost nothing for bandwidth except for the infrastructure.

What these ISP want is: when one of their customers wants to access a google site, google pays them for the traffic that goes over their network.

What doesn't make sense with that is that the traffic is already paid for twice, once with the customers subscription and another time before the data reaches this particulars ISP's network. (If google peers directly with them, they have some sort of deal currently, if the google doesn't then the ISPs inbetween already have a deal with this ISP for the traffic). In effect they are trying to find a way to charge another time for something that already paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The need for gov't intervention is symptomatic of a lack of competition. This is the issue that should be addressed.

In a competitive market, an ISP wouldn't be able to pull this off because its customers would revolt if services that they cared about weren't there.

</comment><comment><USER10> The ISP position is brain-dead. They say that services like Youtube are unfairly saturating their pipes and not compensating them.

Nevermind that access to things like Youtube is exactly what CREATES demand for internet service. You think people are paying for broadband so they can send emails faster??

What they're saying to Google is "if you don't stop creating so much demand for our connections, we're going to go out of business!" Which can be simplified to, "we don't charge enough to cover our costs!"

Which is either false (likely) or indicates that they're incompetent. But it's nobody else's fault, least of all the fault of services that ISP customers are paying to access.

</comment><comment><USER11> Aah, Neelie Kroes, the person who gave Bill Gates both a honorary doctorate and a €500 million fine. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neelie_Kroes>)

<comment><USER12> FWIW, the fine was to Microsoft, not Bill Gates.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but it's close enough to the truth and a better story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Somewhat confused arguments here, given that Google has started an initiative to make the web faster (through reducing file sizes and HTML cruft):

<http://code.google.com/speed/articles/>

</comment><comment><USER14> AFAIK, in France, dailymotion already pays providers to have the right to exist on the networks (Orange, Free ...). Youtube doesn't... :)

</comment><comment><USER15> It seems that since last year, a lot of companies are trying to cash in on Googles success. I'm always curious, why is it only Google that they want to charge? Sure, Google has the biggest presence online. But I'm sure other companies are not far behind. Facebook being one of them, especially in terms of bandwidth usage.

<comment><USER16> They may be waiting to see if Google can be rolled. If that happens, the floodgates will open.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can actually see how it would be in Google's interest to consider investing in areas where the network is, say, "sub par".

Legal action doesn't seem like a conducive way to encourage that idea....

</comment><comment><USER17> Operators remain worried that they will offer no more value than an ISP.

</comment><comment><USER18> So they overcharge the users and that's not enough, so now they want a piece of Google? Right...

</comment><comment><USER19> Companies want to play being a broker all the fuckin time.</comment>


Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-13/debt-worldwide-hits-record-184-trillion-or-86-000-per-person <comment><USER3> To anyone wondering what debt "means", or if some debts will ever be repaid, or wondering about "jubilees" where debts are forgiven, I recommend David Graeber's book "Debt: The First 5000 Years".

I am not sure if some of the ideas about debt that Graeber argues are correct, but he does discuss a lot of interesting examples of debt from societies throughout history.

[https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/debt/](https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/debt/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years)

<comment><USER4> > _" To anyone wondering what debt "means", or if some debts will ever be > repaid, or wondering about "jubilees" where debts are forgiven"_

Can you just give the answers to these questions?

<comment><USER5> Shortest possible answer: debt is money.

Or you could say it's dual to money - creating debt creates money, paying debt destroys money. There's literally less money in the world when you make your mortgage payment (bank just sends much of your payment to /dev/null), and there's literally more money in the world when you take a mortgage (bank pulls it out of thin air).

If all debt would be repaid then almost all of the money as we know it today would disappear.

<comment><USER6> That's not really how it works. The bank takes savings deposited and issues most of it as loans keeping enough on hand to issue to people withdrawing their savings (fractional reserve banking). The interest on the loans pays the interest on the savings (which is why one tracks the other). They also borrow money from the markets (or the central bank) at low interest rates to reissue as higher-interest loans. Nowhere in that system do they create money out of thin air or send money to /dev/null (although I get the impression they do some of that in derivatives markets).

<comment><USER7> But they're able to loan far more than they have in deposits, no? In which case how are they not "creating money" by lending?

<comment><USER8> It's an issue of details.

Mortgages make MBS, mortgaged backed securities, which are traded around. You can buy these, or SLABs, student loan backed securities.

Neither are money. M0 money can only be made by the US Fed. M1 or M2 money can be made by banks out of savings accounts or checking accounts, due to the fractional reserve system.

By lending money to a bank through the savings account mechanism, the bank owes YOU money, because the bank spends roughly 80% of it on other things.

That's why there is a distinction from M0 pure cash, and the M1 or M2 virtual 'nearly money' in the system. I think credit cards are a higher order of money as well...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Doesn't debt have to sum to zero globally? A debt held by one person is an equal asset owed another.

Or perhaps this is a measure of the number of debts outstanding, divided per person, but not accounting for assets.

<comment><USER10> Not necessarily. The value of debt as an asset is often less than the amount owed, because there is a non-trivial risk that the debt will not be paid back in full. Furthermore, if you are a central bank, you can effectively borrow money from your future self.

<comment><USER11> Aren't all loans effectively borrowing money from your future self? :)

<comment><USER12> Not if you default or die. Technically, you're only borrowing from your future wealthier self.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm ignorant on this, but to me there are two kinds of debt. 1) Personal debt, like I took out a car loan and I can get the car repossessed or the loan sold to debt collectors. 2) Debt that exists just to create more money i.e. the IMF or Fed Reserve decide to have an expansionary monetary policy and they lend from... what exactly? The purpose is to just control inflation.

I'm guessing this is the second kind of debt, but the title makes it sound like the first.

<comment><USER14> My understanding is that reserve banks create money out of thin air and then 'loan' it to governments. Then governments use the money to pay for public projects. A lot of the money ends up going to large corporations through significant government contracts, grants and subsidies.

When a government takes a loan from the reserve bank and puts it into circulation by giving the money to corporations to pay for public projects, the government is effectively diluting the value of everyone's money and giving it to corporations. This process creates public debt for which the government will need to take additional loans from the reserve bank to keep meeting the interest repayments; which will further dilute the value of everyone's wealth while increasing corporate wealth; and the cycle will keep repeating.

<comment><USER15> The idea is that the public projects increase everyone's wealth by a greater amount than the interest on the debt.

If you take money out of the equation and just consider that we have a large pool of labor to make use of, government's purpose in spending on projects is to allocate some of that labor towards long-term goals that no company would involve itself in as the pure profit potential is too risky, distant, or difficult to capitalize on.

<comment><USER16> This might be true. However it's fact that poor people lose the most from inflation. Which is better?

<comment><USER17> The poor don't have savings. If you spend as much or more than you make inflation benefits you by devaluing the debt you owe.

If you have a large 401k on the other hand it deflates the value of your retirement savings. You may have to work in old age.

<comment><USER18> Inflation generally doesn't hurt the value of stocks in a 401(k). You still own the same percentage of the underlying public corporations. Inflation only hurts your bond holdings. This is one reason why it's best to keep at least some of your retirement fund assets in stocks even as you approach retirement age rather than shifting entirely too bonds.

TIPS also provide a way to hedge against inflation in retirement funds.

<comment><USER17> Inflation does hurt the underlying companies, and thus stocks are not immune.

Except in cases with extremely high inflation most contracts are not inflation adjusted. By the time a company is paid the merchandise sold is worth significantly more in fiat terms. In high inflation an entity is loathe to trade assets for dollars and so the economy will slow.

<comment><USER18> Your point is generally false as long as inflation remains at a reasonable level (no hyperinflation). You can chart out stock market index returns versus inflation if you don't believe me.

<comment><USER17> I was speaking of relatively high inflation (>10%). The fed has been extremely good at keeping inflation stable so we have not seen this in a long time.

This is not a criticism of current fed policy with respect to its relatively low inflation targets. While the effects I mentioned still occur, they are vastly outweighed by other concerns at low inflation levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's kind of silly to spread corporate and government debt across all people. Also, the article makes no mention of what assets are valued at.

<comment><USER20> >It's kind of silly to spread corporate and government debt across all people.

Why? The most indebted (how may have billions the bank) still need to have others work for them in order to repay their debt. Billionaires earned billions because "people" work for them (or buy from them, in the end that's the same thing).

<comment><USER21> There's a real difference between taking out a loan to buy consumables/non- revenue generating depreciating assets and corporate debt that is taken out on the expectation that there will be a higher return on them.

In a sense rising corporate debt is a vote of confidence in the growth of the economy as lenders are expecting to be paid back with interest.

Government debt is somewhere in between IMO, since it has stimulative effects and the government captures some of that through taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's a reason ancient Judaism included a "Year of Jubilee", where all debts were forgiven every 50 years.

<comment><USER23> If all debt was forgiven every 50 years, why would any lender lend money with a term going past the year before the jubilee?

<comment><USER24> Well, in part the ideas was not get into big debts. People could self-sustain much more easily in the past. No need to buy iPhone each year help on that.

Is important to note that the jubilee was a measure against the worst case scenarios: Persons that sell themselves as slaves (or sons of slaves), people that lost the hereditary land and things like that.

This also means the society was based around this expectations.

<comment><USER25> > People could self-sustain much more easily in the past.

Why? Why has the ability for debt-free self-sustaining decreased?

<comment><USER24> People live form the land or livestock. Even without much money you could get food. Plus, was part of the Law that anyone could harvest from any field after the first pass from the owners, as measure against starvation.

If you live in a rural area, even today, you will see that is normal and easy to share and get food _free_ or very cheap (in fact, a lot of food will not get in the supermarket for lack of ways to fully utilize the capacity!).

Is kind of simply to maintain a live if your are friendly in the community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sigh, Bloomberg how far you have fallen.

In the article this is the IMF talking, so we're talking about sovereign debt not commercial debt like credit cards or mortgages or car loans.

Sovereign debt is nominally repaid through the execution of the economy. A country borrows by selling debt securities, with fixed maturity dates and then redeems those securities once they mature.

Consider this really simple example in the US; The treasury department sells a note that has a face value of $10,000 and a maturity date 10 years from now, to Alice for $8,188. If you figure out what interest rate you would need to have $8,188 equal $10,000 in 10 years (monthly compounding) you would find that the "equivalent" interest rate or yield to be 2%. So they have "borrowed" $8,188 dollars from Alice, who, 10 years from now, will turn in her note and they will give her $10,000. They might end up selling two notes to Bob and Charlie just before Alice shows up at the window in order to have cash to give Alice but in either event the note that Alice bought gets "redeemed" (or retired) and it is off the books, it has been "repaid."

Over the course of the year revenues come in, and sometimes there is already enough cash in the drawer to pay off Alice without selling any more notes, in which case the total amount of notes out there goes down. The amount of revenue is proportional to the economic output or GDP of the country because, well everything gets taxed a bit. This is easiest to understand when looking at income taxes since the more income (the more people working the more people have incomes or more income) the more taxes you get. So more economic activity results in more revenue for the state, which means selling fewer notes. If spending levels are kept constant, and the economy grows, then you reach a point where you don't need any note sales to pay your bills.

So the IMF is responding to the news that the US deficit (which is that the US sold more notes than they had expected revenue) for the month of November was a record[1] to $205B. What does it mean to you and me? Well it probably means a some point someone in Washington DC will have to raise taxes if they want to keep the debt ceiling down.

[1] (warning autoplay video) [http://fortune.com/2018/12/13/us-budget-deficit- record-novem...](http://fortune.com/2018/12/13/us-budget-deficit-record- november/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Debt doesn't concern me. As another poster said "The total government debt = total private sector savings, to the last cent. That is an accounting truth". What does concern me is obligations - specifically underfunded public pension obligations. There is no accounting balance here - a day of reckoning will surely come.

"Mitchell and Friedberg warned that the pension hole will swallow public- and private-sector employees alike, because all income earners will pay for it. Mitchell ran a simple calculation to illustrate her point: If the shortfall were $5 trillion, divide that amount by the 158 million workers in the American labor force for an obligation of about $32,000 per worker."

[http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-time-bomb- ins...](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-time-bomb-inside- public-pension-plans/)

<comment><USER28> > public pension obligations. There is no accounting balance here - a day of > reckoning will surely come.

These scare stories are solved by a modest rise in taxes. The obligations are summed over many decades and projected into the future.

<comment><USER29> Modest rise in taxes... Across the board to person in the United States? To only the 50% of people who are taxpayers? To only the top 10% who pay 70% of the taxes already? Tax those who do not generate income traditionally but rather earn based on investments? Seizure of personal assets?

Depending on how you go about this, you could create economic stagnation because of burdensome pension programs.

Alternatively, you could cut benefits, or privatize the investments rather than simple redistribution from one payroll tax payer to one pensioner.

I'm in favor of privatization combined with benefit reduction and increased minimum retirement age.

The combination of these three could easily solve any pension shortfall and generate long term wealth for every American.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone actually still believe that these debts will all someday be repayed? Does anyone even believe that the amount of debt will go down, rather than up, over the course of any length of time? Even a day? I don't, which raises the question: how does a world where debt monotonically increases indefinitely work? Can that happen forever, in which case debt has just become a standin for currency (that allows people to have negative amounts of currency). Or does it eventually go kabloie? Unfortunately I don't have an answer, but I suspect we'll find out within our lifetime.

<comment><USER31> > Does anyone actually still believe that these debts will all someday be > repayed?

I don't understand why you would ask this question. On the individual level its obvious that some debts won't be. It happens all the time for a lot of reasons. So I assume you aren't talking about the individual level.

But on the macro level zero debt is a very bad idea and unless civilization collapses there will always be debt. Debt itself is a very good thing. Too much, and too little, of a good thing is bad.

So in either case all debts being paid off will almost certainly never happen.

> Does anyone even believe that the amount of debt will go down

In absolute terms due to inflation it always goes up.

> (that allows people to have negative amounts of currency)

You say this like its a bad thing. Debt isn't a bad thing. Debt allows people to own homes and cars and pay for education and invest in business. Debt means you are optimistic about the future.

<comment><USER32> This reads like a person with Stockholm syndrome, captured by the Federal Reserve system. Money/currency does not have to be debt based. For a lot of America's history, it was not debt based.

<comment><USER33> People downvoting this comment: please provide reasons for disagreeing. You are not adding to the discussion by silently downvoting.

<comment><USER34> I started a reply, but honestly, I just don't feel like it's worth the energy to follow up with the replies I'd get. Probably because of the tone of the response.

I don't see debt as all that much different than insurance. Sure, society can get by without it, and you may never need it, but society in general benefits. If I run a business any large expenses would be amortized over the lifetime of that thing. I could pay for it upfront, but that might never happen and if I could it wouldn't be the best use of my resources. Ideally, I'd "pay rent" in order to borrow money upfront, now that I have that machine it's easier to pay back since that fixed cost will benefit me for the next 20 years. That's the scenario where all debt is never paid back.

Financial tools, like anything else can be good or bad depending on the circumstances and motivations at play. Payday loans (generally seen as bad) aren't all that different from micro-loans lauded in third-world countries. Let's say there's an older woman who walks out of town to buy goods and carries them back to town every day to sell (arbitrage). If she gets a small loan to buy more goods up front, invest in a wheelbarrow, or a booth at the market she can do more business and more easily pay off that loan benefiting; her, the person offering the loan, the sellers and the buyers--society in general. If she cannot pay back the loan she can get into a debit spiral. There are situations where that is beneficial to the person giving her the loan at the expense of her and the rest of society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> If everyone is borrowing then who owing? The trick is to borrow against the future generations. Assume that it was legally allowed to borrow $1000 against the income that would be generated by your kids 10 years later. You can use this to accumulate infinite amount of debt by extending to grad-kids and so on. This is more or less what is happening.

Government made promises to pay pensions/medical benefits to large quantity of people but doesn't have that kind of money from tax income. So they borrow from the future generation by printing more money promising to pay itself back. The net result is inflation like phenomenon which rises cost of services but not the income for the new folks who enter the job market. So this debt indicates amount of hardship future generations will encounter, at least at the start of their careers.

</comment><comment><USER36> Issac Newton changed the world for the better by creating fractional reserve banking. But it's like an elastic band as we noticed in 2008. To get any perspective on this a breakdown by age groups would be more revealing. My goggle fu failing me.

</comment><comment><USER37> And what are assets per person?

<comment><USER38> $86,000 per person.

<comment><USER38> For the downvoters: if it's a different number, where did the rest of the money go?

<comment><USER39> Asset values are not static. e.g if you borrowed $100K for to buy your $110K house 10 years ago, you may have $86K remaining on your mortgage today and your house might have appreciated to $134K.

<comment><USER38> But the 134K is only a validated if someone buys the house with 134K cash and/or credit. And that 134K is typically measured in terms of comps - <USER2> houses of similar size and similar condition... that were purchased with cash or credit. Currency is a ledger... one man's debt is another man's credit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Um, am I doing math wrong?

184 trillion divided by 7.7 billion = 23,896

<comment><USER41> I think it may be an average amount between those who hold debt rather than everyone in the world.

<comment><USER42> This would mean that only 2.14 billion are indebted? At the same time, how does it include public vs. private debt?

I think it would be really interesting how the figure of $86,000 per person was calculated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> When I read the title my first reaction was 'Who tf does the world owe money to, the martians?'.

Though reading the article and comments did make it a lot clearer to me.

</comment><comment><USER44> In unrelated news: average mortgage worldwide close to $86k per Person.

How much of the Worldwide debt is secured by collateral?

<comment><USER45> If you count national debt, you get ~$60k/person from that, so the average mortgage would be closer to $20k/person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Isn't worldwide accumulative debt 0.0 by definition?

</comment><comment><USER47> Didn't know we owed money to World Bank of Earth 29.

</comment><comment><USER48> Given i personally have 1.5 million, that feels nice and low.

<comment><USER49> weird flex, but ok

<comment><USER50> just a normal flex, really

<comment><USER48> Flex? Just openly sharing debt info that is relevant to the article, meanwhile we have a whole bunch of people previously applauded for openly sharing their salaries, and I'm the one flexing? Thanks for your contribution...it's not a flex, it's just a fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Similar to how the US bailed out the banks. How about the citizens are bailed out. It would boost the economy. Restore faith in the system!

<comment><USER52> That might be nice, but... how, exactly?

By writing off the debts? That's not so nice for those who are owed. A bunch of those are pension funds, for example. If peoples' pensions get wiped out by by all debts being forgiven, they won't be so happy.

By the government giving money to people? But where does the government get the money? By taking on debt? Then the government's even more deeply in debt, which means that we the people still are in debt, too.

Or does the government just create more money? This might be the least-bad way of doing it, but it would still be hugely inflationary.

<comment><USER53> > By the government giving money to people? But where does the government get > the money? By taking on debt? Then the government's even more deeply in > debt, which means that we the people still are in debt, too.

But it's a lot easier to pay off, especially if you prioritize high risk debt to nationalize, so the government has a lower cost of borrowing (especially if the government, instead of paying off distressed debt, instead purchases it at current fair market value, since then the cost will be below the face value; "healthy" debts don't need a correction.)

<comment><USER52> That actually makes sense economically. Politically, though, what's going to happen is that people aren't going to want to pay taxes to service the government's debt (even if in advance they said they would). The consequences of the much-larger government debt without increased taxes could be anywhere from "somewhat negative" to "catastrophic".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> What if we just delete all the debt and start from zero? Won't the zero (everything people have built and developed to the date) be better than if the debtors had never taken the credits?

I would like a theoretical answer ignoring the ethical part and the fact creditors will become less willing to lend money again if this happens.

<comment><USER55> Why-Not depends on which side you fall into. There are two sides: People with Debt and People collecting Payments.

People-Paying would love to start from zero.

People-Collecting would not want that.

If you think about it as two groups (theoretically): one group receives monthly, recurring payments from the other group.

In practice, individuals move from one group to another group and back, etc. based on life circumstances.

But here is a catch: Due to a bug or design, if an individual (or few individuals or families) could always stay in the receiving-group, he can live for free till end of time (or system halts/collapses.)

What will blow your mind is, are there such individuals or families in the system by design?</comment></comment>


He Made Stone Speak - <AUTHOR> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/07/02/michelangelo-he-made-stone-speak/ <comment><USER2> Vasari's book (mentioned in the article) is an amazing read. While centered around contemporary artists, it is clear that Michelangelo is the star of the work.

And there is a very interesting set of details on the carving of David and the rescue attempt of the marble block which another sculptor had attempted to (unsuccessfully) carve.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's something sacrilegious about St. David of Israel being depicted nude. Remember that in the Roman Catholic Church, he is a canonized saint (pre- congregation). What would it feel like to you like if a holy woman like St. Teresa of Ávila were depicted as Venus De Milo?

Yes, it's a beautiful piece of art, but Michaelangelo should have used some historical figure or something other secular to do it, not a holy man. Or if he were to depict St. David of Israel, it should have been like in the style of statues of St. Francis of Assisi or St. Maximillian Kolbe.</comment>


Compiling C to java bytecode [2006] - <AUTHOR> http://depth-first.com/articles/2006/10/16/compiling-c-to-java-bytecode/

<comment><USER2> The problem is that java bytecode and the JVM are a good match for java in terms of safety: array bounds checking and such is enforced on the bytecode level. C programs which either are written poorly and take advantage of some of the unsafety or require a highly optimized inner loop that takes advantage of some of C's behavior for optimization will probably function rather slowly.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is actually what I was looking to gain from posting the link. I wanted to know the advantages and disadvantages to compiling c into bytecode that could run on the jvm. I'm curious to know how closely the bytecode would match.</comment></comment>


Companies Ranked by Turnover Rates - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-ranked-by-turnover-rates-2013-7

<comment><AUTHOR> I expect someone may comment and ask what this has to do with Hacker News, but I submitted it because of a couple of very interesting things I noticed. First, I've always heard how people used to have a sense of loyalty to their company, and (probably) vice versa. It seems that companies with the lowest turn-over have much older employees. Of course, you can't have 20-year old employees without them being about 40, so I'm sure that messes with my perception of the statistics. Second, pay is obviously not correlated with tenure very strongly. Probably a lot more to do with how much people like the job and the company. Nothing terribly surprising, but still interesting, I thought.</comment>