Never consider a travel planning startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.tnooz.com/article/why-you-should-never-consider-a-travel-planning-startup/ <comment><USER2> Travel is the white whale of tech startups. It's very alluring to tech entrepreneurs since it's:

A) Sexy - the idea of running a travel startup sounds exciting. It feels like an opportunity to periodically escape from the humdrum life of staring at a computer screen in the office all day, while still doing what you're best at.

B) A broken business - travel booking, planning etc is very confusing and flawed in many ways

C) A "big pie" to take a bite out of - it's a multi billion dollar market, so there must be opportunity in there somewhere.

The problem is, _every_ tech entrepreneur has these same thoughts, and everyone has tried to execute on them at one point or another. It's a ridiculously competitive market, and for the most part the big $$$ for revenue are locked up by monolithic travel booking networks, that are only willing to relinquish a teeny tiny piece of the travel $$ pie to newcomers.

Then drop in this hard truth - recreational travel isn't actually all that commonplace amongst average people. The average joe goes on one or two major vacations in their entire life. So if you want to make money, you need to cater to either travelers with a lot of disposable income (the wealthy or retired), or business travel. Those niches are already very crowded but dominated by big, established, aggressive players, that you and every other dreamy-eyed tech entrepreneur eventually have to compete with for attention.

It's a long, nearly impossible battle to wage for anyone who hasn't spent their life in the industry. Winning in that space is a war of attrition competing with businesses with decades in the travel field, all in hopes of this grand and naive vision of striking it rich _while on permanent vacation_. Unwinnable. The white whale.

<comment><USER3> > The average joe goes on one or two major vacations in their entire life

That might be true for the US, but it is def. more common in Europe, where people go on trips every summer.

<comment><USER4> The average American travels 2.9 times/year, defined as an overnight trip >100 miles from home. The average European travels 4.9 times a year by this definition. So yes, a huge gap - add to this that the majority of trips Americans take are to visit family rather that to visit somewhere new. The early stage travel startup scene in Europe is much more vibrant than the US, but fewer of them get funding because European VC is so cautious and travel is universally acknowledged to be a tricky industry. I guess this means there should be more American startups that target European travel markets...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Want to build a profitable travel planning startup?

Hire a competent (and preferably multilingual) salesperson to approach regional tourist boards. After securing your first contract, develop your travel planning app as white label product and sell to other regional tourist boards. There are plenty of them, and they spend a lot of marketing dollars, usually subsidised by the regional government.

You won't be a "unicorn", but you also won't be battling deep-pocketed giants over paid search or juggling hundreds of distribution relationships. (Your clients will, but it's their raison d'etre and they're not expected to turn a profit)

</comment><comment><USER6> As someone who travels for leisure quite a bit, I never fully trust commission-driven booking sites to show me the full selection, the real quality ranking, etc. I can't really imagine ever using a single site and trusting that I'm getting the best options (as one well-known example, Southwest flights not showing up in searches on third-party booking sites). When I am spending thousands of dollars on a trip, I need to know that I'm seeing the full picture before I make my decisions.

I invariably end up searching for options across several sites, manually checking directly with specific airlines and hotel groups I know, reading reviews from across the web, etc. Once I've done all of that legwork to find the absolute best flights and hotels for my needs, why would I go back to some aggregator site to book? I'll just book directly.

This of course takes me a LOT of time, and if there were a way to reduce the time consumed, I'd do it. But only if it got me the exact same result, and I can't see how a commission-based travel planning site could effectively replicate that process.

<comment><USER7> I felt the same way as you and I built a site that aggregates accommodations, including absolutely everything, not just companies paying commmissions. We have couchsurfing, Airbnb, all the main hotel sites, Groupon, Hotwire, and most other sites you might ever bother checking. It's called [http://AllTheRooms.com](http://AllTheRooms.com).

<comment><USER4> +1 for alltherooms.com being a good service, it's my go-to for accommodation booking. Seriously, being able compare even couchsurfing options is a godsend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something about travel is deadly alluring to some category of entrepreneur. I once went to a party in Silicon Valley, where I met multiple people working on "it's sort of like WikiPedia for travel" (this was a few years ago, when "wiki for X" seemed like a reasonable business idea and occasionally even got funding and actually launched something). And, I said, "Oh, I think I just met your co-founder a few minutes ago." and, they replied, "No, my co-founder isn't here", or "no, I don't have any co-founders". Multiple people, multiple conversations. None of them knew the others or had any awareness that they were competing with, seemingly, thousands of people who had the same brilliant idea.

By my calculations, something like 10% of all the people at that party were working on a fucking travel wiki. That's kind of a microcosm of Silicon Valley, in general, but yeah...travel seems like a weird black hole for entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER9> > travel seems like a weird black hole for entrepreneurs.

Not that weird at all actually -- it's an easy to understand business with an overly-complex buy flow they think they can fix. It's the kind of problem that many entrepreneurs are likely to have run into themselves and said "Well I can do this better".

<comment><USER10> There are lots of successful companies in the space too. Must be >20 large ones. Skyscanner just became I think the first Scottish unicorn a week ago and I'm sure there will be more. Just a lot of competition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The problem is a better product is not necessarily a good business"

Hear, hear. This gets lost oftentimes when you hear the whole "build something people want" mantra.

<comment><USER12> Yup. It'd be trivially easy to make a better dating app than what's available - all the incentive issues for guys to spam girls go away if you have each side rank the other for who they'd like to meet, then pair everyone up with their highest ranked person that can't find a better match. Dating is a classic matching market, and there's excellent mechanism design for making good matching markets.

Unfortunately, good mechanism design is one of the least important factors for whether or not a dating app succeeds - what is important is whether or not you can convince people to use it.

<comment><USER13> I've played around with dating apps, but never found one that was even close to being useful.

Finding someone you want to be around is such a complicated thing. Speaking as a dude, what these dating apps all get wrong is I don't want someone like myself. Yea, I verbalized I want this quality, and this, but in the end; I really don't know what I want. People change. People are not their profile.

The long term relationships, I had, were with people who were my exact opposites. People I thought I would have nothing in common with.

When I walk into a room, I just know who I'm drawn to. It has nothing to do with looks. It's just feeling I get. I don't think an app will ever replace this evolutionary mechanism.

Plus, some people just photograph horridly. I'm a Photographer, and there's people who photograph well, and there's people that don't. If I'm doing a free photo shoot, and the model is only going to pay for sent head shots. I always ask for a candid picture of the future client before I shoot them. Before I waste a day shooting them, I want to see if they have a chance in hell of getting a job in the future. (I make money off the sent head shots. Free studio time, but they don't get the negatives/RAW files.) Some beautiful people in person--just photograph horridly.

<comment><USER14> >The long term relationships, I had, were with people who were my exact opposites. People I thought I would have nothing in common with.

You are an outlier as far as research on attraction. Studies show that people are attracted to very similar people on all dimensions, except for the opposite sex.

Maybe there needs to be "The Opposite" dating app:

George Costanza Does The Opposite

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUvKE3bQlY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUvKE3bQlY)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> @garrytan said it as well in 2012: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea

[http://blog.garrytan.com/travel-planning-software-the- most-c...](http://blog.garrytan.com/travel-planning-software-the-most-common- bad)

</comment><comment><USER16> There's a lot of good detail in the article, but I have to believe that the fundamental problem is an implicit one--namely that most people effectively tolerate commission fees baked into booking prices but they're not willing to explicitly pay for travel services. Even back when people still widely used travel agents, personalized advice for complicated trips was effectively subsidized by all the people booking cruises and simple air travel.

</comment><comment><USER17> _And no, free user acquisition schemes like SEO do not work in 2015 at scale in established markets._

This is the big takeaway from this article for me. In fact I think this whole article is great if you are trying to build a new way to do something in an established market.

We aren't in the travel space, but we are in the retail home goods space, which is arguably even more established. It follows the same pattern: 1-2 times a year someone needs something and it's a fairly large purchase.

We learned early on that the most important thing is getting in with manufacturers and having them promote us.

 _A white-label /tech-vendor strategy works if your product is indeed relevant within the incumbents' offering, hard-to-build, reasonably easy to integrate and doesn't step on too many toes._

Man that hits home

</comment><comment> J-dawg Paul Graham's essay on plausible, but ultimately bad startup ideas comes to mind [1].

"The danger of an idea like this is that when you run it by your friends with pets, they don't say "I would never use this." They say "Yeah, maybe I could see using something like that." Even when the startup launches, it will sound plausible to a lot of people. They don't want to use it themselves, at least not right now, but they could imagine other people wanting it. Sum that reaction across the entire population, and you have zero users."

[1][http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Silly article. Life is hard - why try anything? Just because this guy's idea didn't work doesn't mean there isn't a killer app for this.

</comment><comment><USER19> one of my favorite Warren Buffet quotes: "When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact."

<comment><USER20> Love this quote, it pretty much predicted the on-going situation with Marissa Mayer and Yahoo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fortunately for entrepreneurs, this idea seems to be catching on.

Unfortunately for consumers, it seems that the user experience is stuck in 2007. I _still_ can't find a good app which allows me to plan a full trip at once, especially when I haven't entirely decided where I want to go yet. As someone who travels about once a month, I'd love to see something better than Kayak.

<comment><USER4> If you haven't decided exactly where and when you want to travel, Hitlist (hitlistapp.com) makes it easier to compare options across variable dates/destinations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't know that it would scale up well, but I wouldn't mind travel booking as a personal service:

* Planning the trip: Someone who has expertise in all the sites, options, services, loyalty programs, hidden-city fares, likely delays, smaller nearby airports, fare-tracking, best seats on the plane, best hotels, etc.; who learns my preferences; and who then books everything for me, with absolutely minimal time and effort on my part. I don't want to look through all the sites and gather the options; it seems like a waste that so many people spend so much time gaining a little expertise in the nightmare of travel booking.

* During the trip: Monitor their customer's trips for delays, cancellations, etc., find out before everyone else (i.e., while seats on the next plane still are available) and respond appropriately (find alternative flights, rebook, reschedule ground transportation, obtain refunds, etc., or simply update me). I just want a text message telling me the new plan, or if absolutely necessary, a couple of options.

* At the destination, some concierge service: I need dinner delivered, food waiting in my hotel fridge, a tennis game Wednesday morning, a doctor, another shirt, a bar showing the game back home, etc. It's time consuming to do all that in an unknown town and time is more constrained due to the usually crowded schedule of a traveller.

Every time I have to deal with this stuff, I think about how someone who developed expertise in it would be much more efficient. Just getting to know the resources well would be a big advantage.

As for tech: An app that displays and syncs your current itinerary (including delays, etc.) with the vendor, and with a prominent 'Talk to me!' button that opens an immediate video chat: A friendly, helpful face in a crowded, strange airport, amid cranky flight attendants, during a frustrating trip would make customers very happy. They might pay for that alone.

</comment><comment><USER23> Also, I have found that destinations punish you for not booking on their site. Want to cancel that hotel reservation less than 24 hours before you were supposed to check in? Sorry, we "don't have enough information" because you booked with an aggregator site. Free checked in luggage? That's only if you book with us.

<comment><USER6> In the relatively early days of Expedia, I had a major travel headache because the airline and Expedia were pointing fingers at each other, each saying I needed to deal with the other one to fix the problem (which was not of my doing in the first place - the airline changed the schedule, making my connection impossible). In addition to the reasons I described in my first comment (not trusting that I am seeing all of the options), this is the other thing that puts me off of booking through third-parties. The benefits of booking through someone other than the direct provider need to be huge before I will consider it, and they never are with these travel planning sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Alternatively, wait for Airbnb API to open up[1] and then make a travel planning website that rides the back of Airbnb.

In general, you shouldn't create start-ups in markets with high barriers of entry. However, the fun part of start-ups is learning how to cleverly bypass barriers while building up your own.

If one website was _the_ website to plan an Airbnb vacation, it would have its own barrier that would grow with Airbnb. This would leverage a popular strategy of growing out of a larger, more successful host.

[1] - [http://all-about-airbnb.com/post/127856658166/airbnb- public-...](http://all-about-airbnb.com/post/127856658166/airbnb-public-api- coming-soon)

<comment><USER25> And when AirBnB close their Api that is your business sunk. Basing your business off of one other person's Api is a hugely risky gamble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> No but for real, where is the travel planning service that actually does all of these things laid out in the article? I've been wanting this for years, and all I'm reading is about how I should never build it. And there seems to be quite a few stories where some startup tried to build a trip planning site, and they pretty much succeeded, but they got acquired and shut down! That's so frustrating.

> The Priceline Group spends over $2 billion per year on Google Ads alone.

WOW, that's unbelievable.

> even when one of them sends a link to some vacation rental he's found on > Airbnb that's not available on your app.

I thought this hypothetical app was supposed to be amazing in every way, and it doesn't even support AirBnb

<comment><USER25> There is zero brand loyalty to the middle men in the travel industry. Only the providers get brand loyalty.

<comment><USER27> I've seen no middlemen that _deserve_ brand loyalty, just a bunch of half- decent search sites with crappy service. Beyond basic price comparison of flights and hotels, I don't see anybody providing value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I guess the lesson is don't try to do something where loads of people are doing the same stuff if you're not differentiated. That said a year or so I ran into some guys doing a travel planning startup and they seem to be doing ok - Triphobo. Raised $3m. They are a little different I think. Not that I've surveyed the space. [http://yourstory.com/2015/03/triphobo-raises-3-million- fundi...](http://yourstory.com/2015/03/triphobo-raises-3-million-funding/)

<comment><USER10> "user generated travel itineraries" I think they are the only (or leading) startup doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is CruiseSheet doing?</comment>


Apple to bring iOS apps to macOS - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/apple-is-bringing-the-best-of-ios-to-macos/ <comment><USER2> This must be a stopgap while Apple works on integrating touch systems into their laptop screens.

Whenever we go into the Apple store, it's interesting to see how many people go over to a MacBook and try to interact with the computer by touching the screen.

The time seems right for Apple to step in to the touch screen laptop market. Other companies have already tried the concept, and have produced machines that are OK but not great – there are a number of IBM laptops that do at least OK with their touch interface, and MS seems to be blazing a trail with their Surface line. It's inconceivable to me that Apple won't offer similar products, especially since there are so many excellent apps on iOS. Getting the iOS apps to run (probably clunkily) on MacOS is a sensible first step.

<comment><USER3> > This must be a stopgap while Apple works on integrating touch systems into > their laptop screens.

That seems unlikely. In the keynote Federighi specifically said they're not merging the OSs, and on a recent interview[1] continued to be derisive of the experience of touchscreen laptops:

> Federighi was also dismissive of touchscreen laptops

> (…)

> When addressing my question about whether iOS apps moving to macOS is a > natural precursor to touchscreen Macs, Federighi told me he's "not into > touchscreens" on PCs and doesn't anticipate he ever will be. "We really feel > that the ergonomics of using a Mac are that your hands are rested on a > surface, and that lifting your arm up to poke a screen is a pretty fatiguing > thing to do," he said.

That's not to say they'll never do it, but I doubt this move was made with that in mind. It's more likely their main goal is to bring a push to building macOS apps.

[1]: [https://www.wired.com/story/wwdc-2018-federighi-ios-apps- on-...](https://www.wired.com/story/wwdc-2018-federighi-ios-apps-on-macos/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What I want more than anything: OSX Server that supports headless. It's _so dang hard_ to do continuous integration with automated UI testing on IOS and OSX apps.

</comment><comment><USER5> "These apps might have the same overall feel as their mobile counterparts but key user interactions will have to be updated for the desktop environment"

Hm seems like this mitigates some of the advantage of porting over to macOS this way. If you have to make nontrivial changes to your code anyway to have it work right.

This just feels like something no one was asking for, but I guess there must be a community waiting for this or some reason for Apple to put the time in.

<comment><USER6> For porting maybe, but after the initial framework is released, new apps will just be built with both platforms in mind. Newer versions of UI Kit will probably shift people in the Apple Kit direction and then slowly deprecate all no compatible features.

So unless app developers don't upgrade their app, sort of like moving to 64 bit, then yes everything would be a non trivial effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >It's important to note that Apple is not merging the two operating systems. In fact, Federighi started out this announcement by stating loud and clear that they will continue to be separate products

So... RIP MacOS then.</comment>


Julian Assange further arrested on extradition warrant - <AUTHOR> http://news.met.police.uk/news/update-arrest-of-julian-assange-365565 <comment><USER2> What is the difference between what Assange did and what every journalist does who does not disclose their sources?

I'm not sure if I am right, but I thought the whole point of Wikileaks was to be a publishing platform with good source protection?

<comment><USER3> Assange is not getting arrested for his journalistic activities.

<comment><USER4> And what is he actually arrested _for_?

<comment><USER5> Not turning up where he promised to turn up.

If you tell the judge you'll be there Monday morning 9:00, you need to turn up or have a good excuse. "I don't trust you" is not the right kind.

<comment><USER6> You're referring to a separate arrest of Assange for skipping bail. That's not what this article is about. Far be it from me to suggest you didn't read it.

<comment><USER5> Admittedly, I mixed up my browser tabs and thought I was commenting in a HN thread about the BBC story on Assange's arrest. I think I read the Met page directly after posting that comment.

The point still stands — he was arrested on a matter between him and the English court system. That the original reason why he should've appeared in court is obsolete doesn't mean that he could disregard the court.

EDIT: Maybe I misunderstand something. I thought a summons involves being handed a fat envelope and signing a receipt that basically says "I have received <that envelope> and promise to do as instructed within". Isn't that correct? What is a summons, if not that?

<comment><USER6> > The point still stands ...

It's an entirely separate (and frankly relatively trivial) issue. This part of the discussion involves whether or not Assange's arrest was a consequence of (in @pvg's words) 'his journalistic activities'. It clearly was. See Greenwald's analysis in the Intercept today, with quotes directly from the extradition request. The extradition attempt is part of an ongoing assault by the US government on investigative journalism.

> I thought a summons ..

The legal docs involved here are an arrest warrant and extradition request. It's well beyond the summons stage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A few high profile HN commenters have, for years, been claiming that Assange's insistence that the US would seek his extradition was without merit. I eagerly await their updated analysis.

<comment><USER8> Id like to see a list and the relevant quotations

<comment><USER7> I prefer to see if those users will come forward and comment on this without being named directly.

However, if you're genuinely curious, algolia brings up plenty of examples pretty regularly. In particular I am thinking of a discussion from 2012 in which one particular HN 'power user' makes a lot of comments trying to debunk the idea that Assange actually feared extradition to America. That's one particularly egregious example off the top of my head, but there are plenty of others. I have another cute example of that same user citing the case of Polanski to argue that extradition to America was unlikely. In 2016 this user flat out said that Assange's expressed concern of extradition to America was 'dishonest' and 'irrational.'

I believe that should give you enough to go off of to find what I'm talking about. Like I said, I would rather see if that user comes forward without being directly confronted, and what they will say if they do.

@areyousure I have given you ample leads to find the specific comments I am talking about. Are you sure you looked? You won't have to go down the leader list very far _at all_ to find the user I am talking about. It's 9am in Chicago, maybe he will be gracing us with his insight soon!

<comment><USER9> > If you can't find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with > a straw man.

[http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html](http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html)

<comment><USER10> He's right, it was a common sentiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think there was ever any doubt that once in police custody in the UK they will promptly present him to the US authorities. The nature of the relationship between the 2 countries precludes the UK from taking a stand against any such requests.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps no reasonable doubt, but take a look through this thread if you want to see how many people were accusing Assange for being paranoid and manipulative of his followers

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632449)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [https://defend.wikileaks.org/donate/](https://defend.wikileaks.org/donate/)</comment>


The Art Of Manipulation - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/01/the-art-of-manipulation/ <comment><USER2> This seems broadly to pass the Kant test on morality, so it could be said to be well-grounded.

Something is immoral if it is contradictory when generalised -- that was the gist of Kant's view. And real manipulation and persuasion seem to fail: if everyone is allowed to manipulate everyone else, everyone loses their own control of themselves -- in which case, how can they manipulate someone else? There is a contradiction.

The two basic checks the article proposes -- "Will I use the product myself?" and, "Will the product help users materially improve their lives?" -- are sort-of rough ways of testing for such Kantian contradction.

<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#ForUniLawNat>

<comment><USER3> > And real manipulation and persuasion seem to fail: if everyone is allowed to > manipulate everyone else, everyone loses their own control of themselves -- > in which case, how can they manipulate someone else? There is a > contradiction.

Consider the case of two people A and B in a zero-sum game, who are trying to manipulate one another. Both parties know the score---that each is attempting to control the others actions.

When A or B acts, either one party has succeeded at manipulating the other or both parties have failed.

There can be no situation where A manipulates B (thus A wins), and B manipulates A (thus B wins simultaneously).

<comment><USER4> Manipulation isn't a zero sum game, you can both win. Spouces manipulate each other concurrently all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article! I really liked the manipulation matrix. The author did a great job of impressing upon entrepreneurs like me to create new products that improve lives by facilitating healthful habits. Couple of questions: 1) How does one balance the needs of investors while having a clear conscience to create a product that materially improves users lives but has higher costs or lowers margins? 2) Is there a fundamental behaviors matrix that defines what improves users lives?

<comment><USER6> I hate it, because if I were to use it, I couldn't make a weight watcher app (I don't need or want to lose weight), I couldn't make an app to help women keep track of their period or when to take their birth control pills (I am not female).

But neither of those are evil, and both of them arguably improve the lives of their users.

As for how to balance having a conscience, that is easy as you need to find a product that you believe in and then you won't have moral issues with causing more people to use.

If you can't find one, then realize that there is no god, no universal morals and what we believe is right or wrong can be changed. If you simply believe that you are a moral person and that you don't do things that are unethical then cognitive dissonance will ensure that you don't have any issues with you conscience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Manipulation is wrong if it's truly consensual, and it remains truly consensual after the fact. This is a necessary, but not sufficient condition. The way I sometimes state this, is that, "Not being f#cked with is a basic human right."

If you get consent, but the other party changes their mind and you pressure the other party to remain silent through threats or social pressure, then you don't have true consent. Buyer's remorse notwithstanding -- markets and monetary transactions are a different matter.

I think there is a lot of social and cultural conflict that occurs because of some notion of "implicit consent" or the treatment of certain locations or social contexts in the way we treat a market. I would find that a man who buys a woman dinner and therefore feels entitled to sex is being a jerk. Feeling entitled to sex in almost any context is probably being a jerk. This is another case where one is applying market rules to an interpersonal transaction.

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems to fall apart at a close look.

Except at the extremes, "materially improves users' lives" seems highly subjective. You can make this fit almost any product with a clear conscience - so no one's going to describe themselves as a Dealer or Entertainer.

Also, creating something you personally would use also seems like an odd and arbitrary distinction. I doubt patio11 is personally running many bingo games - but I'm certainly not going to criticize him for building a product many other people find useful.

<comment><USER9> I think the article would be improved if he took a softer stance here. Certainly there are observable defined needs (like bingo cards) an entrepreneur can provide. But many tech companies are trying to invent new things people didn't yet know they needed. When you go there, you better need it yourself or be a damned good and empathetic designer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am somewhat disappointed by this text it claims to be on how to manipulate people but is in reality a morality story (which I could have gotten in the local church if I wanted it).

On the other hand, I do enjoy the irony.

<comment><USER10> You and I both. If you haven't already seen it there's a book, (Predictably Irrational, IIRC) that gives some scientific studies on why certain manipulations work. You might enjoy that, I did :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is great. Can't wait for the next one she publishes so I can read it immediately!</comment>


The Dumbest Words In New Media - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2013/05/10/the-dumbest-words-in-new-media/

<comment><USER2> I gotta say, I love the way the guy writes. His typos make his writing authentic for me in a strange way. Seems to be one of the many benefits of f/y money!

</comment><comment><USER3> Right to the point.

The future is not in how our children use today's technology - they will make their own to feed their needs which most of us cannot yet imagine now.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wait, what's the modern analogue for the boom box?</comment>


Ask HN: Founders with small children? - <AUTHOR>

Question for the founders out there (YC and everyone else too):
How many of you have small children?  How well are you able to focus, be available for work at any and all times, and keep up with obligations to your family?
I have a 1.5-year old and am wondering if it's realistic to start something right now.  The biggest issue in my mind is that we're thinking of calling that factory method again soon. <comment><USER2> I have a 4yo girl, abandoned my very good paying job 4 months ago, founded a startup, worked 24/7 on it, got angel money, currently negotiating with the VC fund and never had ANY regrets, neither had my family. DO IT NOW. After all we're doing all this for them, for the kids :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I got a 3 year old son, and a job, and in the process of starting a company.It is not easy because there is not much time for it.I can work after 10 PM couple of hours.Hopefully in a year or two I could work full time on this.</comment>


Jim Rogers discussing Government at Home initiative - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3XYyoE4tL8

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea behind this initiative is that every Congressman stays in his own district 75% of the time, they use video conferencing to have meetings with other congressmen, vote on bills online. This will allow them to spend more time with their own constituents, and away from Washington lobbyists.</comment>


Launch fast like Product Hunt for startup success? - <AUTHOR> http://www.capitolstartup.com/blog/how-to-launch-fast-for-startup-success/

<comment><USER2> Any tips on market validation for iPhone and Android apps.</comment>


Solar and storage projects drive utility-scale deployment of batteries: Navigant - <AUTHOR> https://www.utilitydive.com/news/solar-storage-projects-to-drive-utility-scale-deployment-of-batteries-na/551724/ <comment><AUTHOR> Summary:

* Storage-plus PPAs are already less expensive than the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for combined cycle natural gas in the United States, according to a recent report from Navigant Research. (My note: BIG DEAL, coal and natural gas [peakers and combined cycle gas turbine] will not be built)

* Lithium-ion batteries are one of the main drivers in the growth of the utility-scale energy storage market, accounting for almost 30% of non-pumped storage capacity developed since 2011, the report found.

* The report comes amid growing expectations that electric utilities increase their investment in storage-plus renewable energy projects as power purchase agreement (PPA) prices continue to fall and adoption expands.

<comment><USER2> This is really great news for Tesla and seems to fit into the "mass production of industrial batteries makes them cheaper" narrative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Now we should expect a growing investment in battery production, right? Or does the sinking cost reduce the potential profit too much, i.e. who would now invest 1000$ into a battery factory that produces at price x$/MWh?

<comment><USER4> Presently announced plans will triple battery production in the next 4 years

[https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/31/global-lithium-ion- batt...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/31/global-lithium-ion-battery- planned-capacity-grows-4-in-a-single-month-charts/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understant why LI-ion batteries are being used in such locations. They are definitely better in terms of energy density, but when size/weight isn't a concern, why are oldschool lead acid batteries not competitive? They are cheap, well-understood, and easily recyclable at end of life. Lithiums are more expensive and difficult to recycle. I understand why they are favored in vehicles, but for massive grid installs?

<comment><USER6> Lead acids have very poor cycle life compared to lithium ion, unless you only use a small amount of their capacity such that the usable cost per kWh between the two are nearly the same.... but lithium ion prices have continued to reduce such that the usable price per kWh for lithium ion is now lower.

Additionally, the round trip efficiency of lithium ion batteries is higher than lead acid. Plus, the added weight of lead acid further increases installation costs. So when all is said and done, lithium ion is now superior to lead acid for grid storage.

Exceptions exist when the simplicity of managing a lead acid battery comes into play. Lithium ion batteries need to be babied. Lead acid can be just thrown onto a DC power bus.

<comment><USER7> Just wondering: Is the environmental impact upon decommissioning a consideration? I'm not sure what important variables are involved in that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Solar + batteries is cheaper than natural gas? I knew it was beating coal, but natural gas? How recent is that?

Is LCOE the primary driver of power generation investment?

<comment><USER9> Within the past few years, solar+batteries is starting to win bids against new natural gas generation in many common peak-related situations (not all yet, but increasingly so). The expectation is that solar+storage will win most peak-related bids by 2025 and then win most baseload bids by 2035.

[https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/batteries- renewables-...](https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/batteries-renewables- displacing-gas/)

After that, it will likely start to displace existing natural gas similar to what it's doing for coal now.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2018/12/03/plu...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2018/12/03/plunging- prices-mean-building-new-renewable-energy-is-cheaper-than-running-existing- coal/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to successfully search HN  - <AUTHOR>

I'm reading Hacker for some time now, but i still havent figured out to sucessfuly search for an article that i forgot to bookmark. for example i read about this free virtual machie hoster 3-4 weeks ago. i cannot find the artice. i even manually tried to go throu the last 800 posts...<p>how do you use search? <comment><USER2> [https://www.hnsearch.com/](https://www.hnsearch.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> and that is different from using the search option on HN in which way?</comment></comment>


Entrepreneur: Why This Tiny Cube Might Be Your Next Office PC - <AUTHOR> http://xi3.com/news.php?id=576

<comment><USER2> Ok found where I heard of this: <http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1560792>

This has been around for 2-3 years now and while nice to look at, it isn't that great. I never really understood what niche market they were trying to target because their hardware choices aren't all that compelling. To explain:

The choice of CPUs (the only thing that you would want to upgrade since network and power won't matter that much) is pretty sparse - Athlon 3400E, 3100, or 2000+ are your "current gen" choices. The performance of these CPUs is comparable/worse than some of the Atoms present in nettops which cost much less than $850. Once you factor in accessories (vesa mount is extra on the xi3 as are the keyboard/mouse - also the default SSD is pretty small @ 16GB), the price of one xi3 is comparable to 2, maybe 3 nettops.

Over 10 years, how often would you upgrade a basic workstation computer or HTPC (the only real use for a computer with this type of power)? Probably only 2 times. So why buy an xi3 instead of a nettop at half the cost? Presumably so you can upgrade at a smaller cost. However you can just buy an entire new nettop when you do decide to upgrade, which would also have a better CPU at the time, and still manage to break even. You even get to keep the old nettop working instead of having a useless extra CPU lying around.

Overall, the idea is interesting but the final costs simply don't make sense for a workstation/HTPC. You would need to do CPU upgrades > 2-3 times in 10 years to beat the cost of just buying a nettop.

The one thing they do have going for them is the Z3RO Module (you need to pay for the software to run this as well @$100) but this too isn't a great solution. One of these will let you use one xi3 for 4 people at roughly the same cost as 3 nettops (a bit over but not enough to get 4). This seems to be a good price if you don't need much computing power to run your software (remember, this is about the same power as an Atom so it is fairly weak already). If you get another module to double to 8, the price will seem even better but what can be run by the users will be severely limited as they are all sharing a single computer.

A better solution than this would be to forgo the hard drives in your nettops to cut cost and instead use them as thin clients. You get more computing power and can still scale at a somewhat reasonable cost compared to the xi3 + Z3RO Module. Or, you can just go with cheap laptops (portable, same power, prices are dirt cheap for low end ones, and they come with OEM licenses for Windows, and don't require monitors) and beat out the xi3 + Z3RO Module completely.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Each Xi3 device is made up of three separate modules: one for the processor, one for how the unit communicates on a network and a third for power. This means you can upgrade any of these components -- say, to swap out for a faster processor -- with little effort. Just unscrew the back panel, slide out the required part, put the hatch back on and you're done."

As long as Xi3 still exists. Once they die, you own a cool historical curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER4> What OS does this run? The article doesn't say, and after visiting the company's site, the answer wasn't revealed after clicking around several different pages. Annoying, and an unfortunate marker of hype over facts.</comment>


An acquisition rarely starts out looking like one - <AUTHOR> http://jmtame.posthaven.com/an-acquisition-rarely-starts-out-looking-like-one

<comment><USER3> And sometimes, despite a complete lack of interest in being acquired, people spend time having such discussions simply because they don't understand what the conversation is about.

I was contacted by someone I highly respected a couple of years ago, who spent half an hour half an hour telling me that he thought I was doing great things with Tarsnap, and everybody at his office thought I was amazing and wished they could work more closely with me... and it was only after hanging up the phone that I realized that he was probably trying to find out if I was interested in selling the company.

<comment><USER4> I used to have that curiosity to want to know why competitors were reaching out. I've seen the pattern enough times that I just know, so I have no interest anymore.

You seem to support my point with your story. You said you thought they were interested in buying you at the end of it. Are there other reasons you've encountered, where competitors wanted to talk and there was another purpose behind it?

<comment><USER5> It all depends on how strictly you define "competition". Things might be different in your segment, but my experience is that there is often a lot of room for mutually beneficial cooperation even between fairly direct competitors.

At one startup we sold access to our kick-ass CMS to another web design shop on a per-project basis. They got better tech and won more bids, we got to amortize our R&D costs over more projects. I doubt we ever lost even a single customer to them. There were tens of competitors just in our city, and they were targeting slightly more upscale customers anyway. Pure win/win.

When I sold consulting and support for an open source compiler, of course I talked with the guys doing the same for a competing compiler for the same language. Even though both our main customer was the same company. (Who slightly dysfunctionally were using both compilers for different projects). Why not?

Right now I work for a telecoms system supplier. It's always completely unclear what the overlap between our system and another supplier's is. So it's totally worthwhile to talk to them and figure things out. You never know what the outcome will be. They really could be a direct competitor. They could pat us on the back and say "that's so cute, we started out that way a decade ago". We could be complementary enough to cooperate of RFPs. They could want to license the technology and integrate it to their system. Or, yes, they could want to buy the company. It would be insane not to talk with these people just on the fear of wasting half an hour because you don't want to be acquired.

<comment><USER4> _At one startup we sold access to our kick-ass CMS to another web design shop on a per-project basis._

In that case, it's beneficial to you and I see that as an objectively good thing. I would do the same thing. In my case, OkCupid is a product I've tried and I am entitled to my own opinions about it, even if they are negative. What we're doing isn't complimentary in the same way. I know they don't want to help us out because I've done enough research on IAC to understand it's not in their corporate DNA to want to work with their competitors. Their mission is to buy or shut competitors down.

Some early stage startup founders genuinely want to help other founders out because they're both in the same boat. In this case, I'm referring specifically to a media mogul who has an agenda of keeping competitors out of his space. He fears the Internet because it is a way to bypass middlemen. He knows that artists may eventually go out and promote themselves, but he wants them to be perpetually stuck on Ticketmaster. He doesn't care about innovating, he's only out for the money.

 _It would be insane not to talk with these people just on the fear of wasting half an hour because you don't want to be acquired._

I'm giving up half of my day to meet with anyone in SF. It doesn't sound like much to most people, but it's a lot for an early stage startup. The pattern is also that they don't want to just meet once, they want to stay in touch and keep meeting. That adds up over time.

<comment><USER5> Sure, you do what's best for you. But I'm objecting to the blanket generalization.

There are plenty of positive outcomes other than an acquisition offer from talking to a competitor. My anecdotal data is that those other outcomes are much more common than acquisition offers. Yours appears to be the opposite. It might be due to the different kinds of businesses. It might be geographical. Or something else. It seems much better for people to not start applying your rule of thumb until they figure out which camp their business falls into.

<comment><USER4> It's not a blanket generalization, I think that's the misunderstanding here. I should clarify that my advice is targeted at early stage startup founders. I don't think it applies to small businesses or lifestyle businesses. I don't think it applies in your case because you weren't working on an early stage startup.

I've always had more of an interest in patterns at startups, particularly early stage. I wrote a book on this because of my interest, and the founders echoed the same sentiment with the pattern of competitors wanting to acqui- hire by talking early on. More info on my profile if you're interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> PG told you to keep walking straight ahead and pay no attention, not turn and flip them the bird

<comment><USER4> What part of my response did you think was the equivalent of flipping them off? I wasn't trying to be malicious to anyone personally. I have my own beliefs on IAC and they're negative, but I don't think I said anything nasty to Brian.

I felt the need to correct the stats since they were part of a point I was making. The data I cited doesn't look at a certain group of web sites specifically, which skews the data.

<comment><USER6> You made not one but two responses about why you had no interest in talking to them about an acquisition, when none was specifically mentioned by them in the first place. Throughout, your negative opinion of IAC was pretty clear, and while you didn't come right out and say anything nasty to anyone at OKC, it's hard to not see it as something of an "F U" to someone who had sold their company to IAC.

Bottom line, I think it would have been better if you had just done one post that stuck to _only_ disputing the data with your own sources, and left the idea of an acquisition out of it. That would have been walking straight ahead, paying no attention to them.

<comment><USER4> _why you had no interest in talking to them about an acquisition, when none was specifically mentioned by them in the first place_

But that's the whole point of the article: it's pattern recognition, and I'm using anecdotes to support that. I also wrote a book where I talked to many founders who shared similar stories. Since this article came out, I've received a handful of e-mails from founders of companies that were acquired, all with similar experiences.

 _it's hard to not see it as something of an "F U" to someone who had sold their company to IAC_

The original question still seems unanswered. By writing two essays where I warn founders of a pattern in one and I directly address line-by-line my own response to Brian in another, you still feel both are the equivalent to flipping off Brian from OkCupid Labs? That doesn't make sense to me.

As a founder, I'd want to know if other people experience these things. Has it happened to you before where you've noticed a pattern of competitors wanting to talk, but for reasons other than acqui-hiring you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Beware too that some advances, while looking like possible acquisition discussions, are nothing more than intelligence gathering. Another reason to heed PG's advice to keep looking ahead while ignoring the hand wavers.

<comment><USER8> > keep looking ahead while ignoring the hand wavers

Could you expand on this a bit? It's the first time I read that phrase - <USER2> could be because English isn't my first language. What do you mean with 'hand wavers', people complimenting you on your work without making concrete offers / becoming customers?

<comment><USER9> Just people trying to attract your attention (by waving their arms above their head, figuratively)

<comment><USER10> m_mueller is correct thought that "hand-waving" can mean being deliberately vague or evasive, especially in the context of describing mathematical processes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remember reading a blog post about balancing the relationship between investors and founders. Much like this article, it reminds me of the testing requirements in the US education system. The government wants this data to monitor the progress and state of students. The problem with this need and lack of trust, is that it forces teachers and schools to focus less on learning and teaching, and focus on testing and teaching how to test. The part about CH's acquisition speaks the most to this forced shift away from what worked at the start up, to what the acquirer needs. I think this is inpart due to a lack of trust and ego.

</comment><comment><USER12> jaquesm also wrote an amazing and comprehensive article on this topic: _How to Sell Your Company_ [1]

[1] <http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/How+To+Sell+Your+Company></comment>


Tell HN: Kids know what floppy disks are - <AUTHOR> Something I've heard a lot is "Today's Kids Don't Know What a Floppy Disk Is".
TL;DR: Yes we do.
Hi, I'm deven, a 16-year-old computer dude from Lewiston, Maine. It's one of the most-populated cities in this poor old state, last I checked. There aren't any game stores or arcades around here anymore. I still know what a cathode ray tube is. My friends know what a cathode ray tube is. We use them. Daily. They look better, at least to us. Bing it, someone else can explain why better than I can.
We know what VHSes are! And what compact cassette is! And we regularly use CDs and records! For God's sake, I have a cabinet full (literally overflowing) of tapes right next to me as I type this. I still play my mother's Gameboy Advance.
My point: Stop saying "Generation Z" doesn't know what your "90s kid" tech is.
We're not stupid. Old technology is still relevant in 2019 (going into 2020). Example: Windows, and I think Linux, display a laptop touchpad as a "PS/2 Mouse". What's a PS/2 mouse? Oh, the IBM Personal System/2, the attempted successor to the 5150 with improved graphics capability. Why can't you make a file called COM1.TXT on any version of Windows? Oh, it's backwards compatibility with CP/M (thanks, Foone).
Millenials tend to underestimate Gen. Z, especially our knowledge of old stuff. You don't seem to realize LGR's YouTube channel has spread among us faster than one of our "meme"s. Please stop saying we don't know what old technology is. If I see another person on this site say "modern teens don't know what a Trinitron is" I'm going to throw my computer into a lake. If I, a kid from a town where inbreeding isn't uncommon, know what a 5.25" floppy disk is used for, the computer kid from New York City probably does too. I hope.
This is a caffeine-fueled rant, if someone uses ad hominems my excuse is that I'm just a teen and don't know any better. <comment><USER2> Offended much? I don't think people are judging anybody for not knowing about old technology. If this isn't a troll post then I'm gravely concerned about the future of our society as people should not be this outraged about petty things like this.

<comment><USER3> It isn't petty. Especially in our younger years, we are susceptible to suggestion. If we tell our youth that they don't know about technology, we should celebrate teens who push back on us about it... because many others will simply believe us, and stop trying to learn.

Despite the ranting tone, this encourages me for our future - we have youth with both brains and spines who are willing to stand up and have their say. We need a little youthful outrage in this society to start making some changes, so this might not be the typical HN post, but I like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OK Zoomer.

(sorry guys, I know it's off-topic and offensive to some, but I couldn't resist such an appropriate moment for this joke)

<comment><USER5> We've been using that with our daughter. Lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I became A+ certified in 2004 I learned about CPU slots from the late 80s, so I wouldn't be surprised if the exams nowadays cover crap from the mid 90s.

<comment><AUTHOR> Getting my A+ now; I haven't seen anything from the 80s pop up (I don't think I've even seen a mention of the Personal System 2 written out). Earliest it goes is probably the dial-up connections. It's a shame that it doesn't teach about floppies anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Floppy disks? Do you mean real-life save icons? Yeah I've spotted a few of those around, but how am I supposed to interact with them and save my progress?

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm approaching 30 so your millage may vary but the first time someone tried to pull that on me, I asked them how it related to delay line memory, drum memory, magnetic-core memory, core rope memory and eventually magnetic tape memory (which they did know about). No lakes involved.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is bullshit. I just can't stand baby boomers understanding of the history of violence in my country. It's always been my generation is so crazy. Bitch, y'all had Charles Manson, Charles Whitman, the Hells Angels, and the Vietnam war. That's just a few. Stop with the dooms day sermons and die like you want to live.</comment>


Why you should be doing BDD - <AUTHOR> http://ritasker.me/1gORpGb

<comment><USER2> I love the concept of TDD but can we please stop taking a topic, tweaking it ever so slightly and branding it with a new acronym? If you aren't doing some BDD when you are doing TDD then you probably are doing it wrong.</comment>


The good, the bad, and the ugly of the current economic environment for startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/yes-most-of-you-are-toast

<comment><USER2> "An LP may have seen the percentage of his/her assets in venture capital increase from 10% to 14%, leading him to pull away from the very asset class that is likely to provide the best returns in this environment. The magic of this math is that it encourages LPs to invest more in the most troubled asset classes, not the healthiest."

It's funny that when consumers do this, it's called "dollar cost averaging", is generally considered a good thing, and assumes that assets that are priced low are good values. Apparently when VCs do it, the assumption is that assets that are priced low are "troubled" and this is a bad thing.

Then again, if you take this out to meta-assumption level, it makes perfect sense. Consumers assume VCs are idiots, and so when assets are priced low, it's because the institutional investors are irrational and there are bargains to be had. VCs assume institutional investors are geniuses, and so when assets are priced low, there must be a good reason for it.</comment>


Google Live Fire Map - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1TOEFA857tOVxtewW1DH6neG1Sm0&hl=en&ll=38.414374795570765%2C-122.51486904296877&z=9 <comment><USER2> Sadly this is only for California.

I was looking at worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov during the BC wildfires[0] last summer.

Here's a particularly bad day in September [https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=geographic&l=VIIRS_S...](https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=geographic&l=VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor\(hidden\),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor\(hidden\),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Fires_All,Reference_Labels\(hidden\),Reference_Features\(hidden\),Coastlines\(hidden\)&t=2017-09-06&z=3&v=-143.48275090126558,26.87028210436393,-90.31336811621935,60.10114634501782&ab=off&as=2017-09-06&ae=2017-09-13&av=3&al=true)

Here's today [https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=geographic&l=VIIRS_S...](https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=geographic&l=VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor\(hidden\),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor\(hidden\),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Fires_All,Reference_Labels\(hidden\),Reference_Features\(hidden\),Coastlines\(hidden\))

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_British_Columbia_wildfire...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_British_Columbia_wildfires)

</comment><comment><USER3> Slightly off topic - a friend from England opined that Europe has a much lower incidence of natural calamities compared to the US. Fewer earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, droughts,... Is this true and why?

<comment><USER4> I would bet that it doesn't actually have a lower incidence of natural calamities - Santorini, Pompeii, routine earthquakes & avalanches in the Alps, flooding in the Netherlands & Venice, wildfires in Southern Europe, etc. are evidence of that. I'd bet that it has a lower incidence of natural calamities _near populated areas_ that negatively affect the population.

And the reason for that is evolution. European settlements have been around for thousands of years. Anything built near a place prone to natural disasters that might wipe out the population has already had its population wiped out. By contrast, many large American cities are incredibly new - Houston and the Bay Area (two metros recently in the news for natural disasters) have only held their current megalopolis status for about half a century. Indeed, if you restrict to only _old_ U.S. cities (like Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Charlottesville, etc.), most of them are in locations that are relatively free of natural disasters.

<comment><USER5> I think you have no idea how densely populated Europe is. There are people everywhere including dangerous zones.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Subverting the BBC News BREAKING banner with a hosts file DNS entry - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/BreakingTheNews/BreakingTheNews.github.io

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to block the breaking banner and did this pretty easily but I thought I'd take it further and make a tool to avoid procrastination and/or play tricks on your friends.

TL;DR:

\- Add this to your hosts file to block:

        127.0.0.1 polling.bbc.co.uk

\- Add this instead for fun:

        126.96.36.199 polling.bbc.co.uk

Full write-up here: [https://unop.uk/dev/breaking-the-news-blocking-the-bbc- news-...](https://unop.uk/dev/breaking-the-news-blocking-the-bbc-news- breaking-banner-and-playing-pranks)</comment>


Tax-Free Debt: The great distortion - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21651213-subsidies-make-borrowing-irresistible-need-be-phased-out-great-distortion

<comment><USER2> I would recommend that people actually read the referenced Economist articles instead of the blog: [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21651213-subsidies- mak...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21651213-subsidies-make- borrowing-irresistible-need-be-phased-out-great-distortion) and [http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21651220-most- western...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21651220-most-western- economies-sweeten-cost-borrowing-bad-idea-senseless-subsidy)

For those who don't have the patience to read more on this topic, the key argument is that debt creates perverse incentives. If you follow Basel II or III regulations, you will know how hard it has been for the regulators to convince the banks to increase their tier-1 capital. The banks are happy to pile on more debt rather than raise more equity capital (the purest form of capital) as debt is cheaper and comes with nice tax benefits. The financial crisis of 2008 was exacerbated because of leverage (another way of saying lots of debt).

While this can certainly reduce leverage in the banking sector, the author raises the question of start-ups vs. big companies. Big companies have massive balance sheets and will generally be able to borrow at much better rates whether or not there is tax incentive. If an up and coming start-up is amazing, I am sure there will be 100s of equity investors who will be willing to throw money at it. I wouldn't worry about this impacting them.

That said, this will not fly in the US. So much for logical reasoning.

<comment><USER3> Banks are the only industry where tax deductibility actually makes sense, because a bank is essentially a wholesale broker of debt. You lend to the bank with your current and saving account, it lends to the economy. Tax deductibility will not really result in the bank leveraging less, as the bank is not the ultimate payer of the interest. It will only make it more expensive to borrow from a bank. And the tax will be paid twice (first by the bank, then by the ultimate payer of the interest).

<comment><USER4> "Double taxation" is a fallacious argument, concocted by lobbyists for the rich to complain about the taxes that impact them personally.

This comic summarizes it perfectly: [http://i.imgur.com/Lw61YGs.gif](http://i.imgur.com/Lw61YGs.gif)

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure I understand your point.

Let's say I run a lemonade stand as an individual, and this year the stand makes a profit of $100,000. Let's say individual income tax is 30%. I'd pay $30,000 tax, right? So I'd be left with $70,000 in my pocket.

What if I had decided to set up the lemonade stand as a corporation instead? The corporation would pay some sort of profits tax (say 20%, so $20,000). There's now only $80,000 for me. But I have to pay personal tax of 30% of the $80k, so in this scenario I walk away with only $56k.

Why should the total tax take in the two scenarios be different?

How could I change the second scenario, to preserve the corporate structure, but maximise the money in my pocket?

<comment><USER6> _Why should the total tax take in the two scenarios be different?_

Why _shouldn 't_ they? They are two different situations. Different situations can lead to different outcomes.

<comment><USER5> The two situations are economically identical. The economic activity is the same. The same amount of profit has been made in each case.

EDIT: Yes, I realise that corporations have specific legal attributes/benefits. However, taxing their profits twice doesn't seem (i) fair, or (ii) likely to provide good incentives.

<comment><USER6> A corporation is not just a label. A corporation carries a number of legal obligations and protections. If you want those legal obligations and protections, you pay the price for having them. If you don't want them, don't become a corporation.

The fact that the situation appears economically identical is irrelevant, and actually they're not economically identical. Doing business with a corporation is very different to doing business with an individual, because of those obligations and protections.

As another contrived example, stealing ten dollars from someone is economically identical to having that person gift you ten dollars, but they're not remotely the same thing.

<comment><USER5> You are right that we must pay the price for any legal protections afforded to corporations. I agree that, today, double taxation is part of that price. However, I believe that double taxation should _not_ be part of that price. The two examples I gave should be taxed in the same way. Sure, the corporation scenario may have some additional administration and filing fees, but I don't believe the poor shareholder should pay almost twice as much tax, just to get the protections afforded by a limited liability structure.

You are right that the situations are not economically identical. That was not a useful over-simplification on my part.

<comment><USER4> Someone drinks your lemonade and has a heartattack. The family sues the corporation and wins millions. However your corporation is a limited-liability entity and so files for bankruptcy.

Your personal income and savings, paid as wages, are immune to bankruptcy proceedings. The corporation loses its cash and holdings, but you don't lose your house.

This is a staggering fiscal and economic advantage. You absolutely should be paying _a lot_ for it given the net effect on everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's significant that The Economist is endorsing this concept. It may now go mainstream.

This is more of an issue for businesses than for individuals. Businesses get to choose how they obtain capital, and that decision is often driven by tax considerations. All the ways companies pay for capital - interest, dividends, and stock buybacks - should be taxed at the same rate. Right now, there's a huge tax bias in favor of debt. Borrowing for stock buybacks is a huge fraction of US corporate borrowing, and it's driven by tax considerations. That's effectively a very expensive subsidy program.

Eliminating the tax benefits of debt has systemic advantages. When a company financed by equity goes under, its stockholders suffer, but the potential loss is bounded. As we learned in 2008, debt-financed failures cascade. Much M&A, private equity, and hedge fund activity is fuelled by the tax advantages of equity to debt conversion. Eliminate those, and much unnecessary financial activity goes away. The hedge fund industry will scream, but now that it's well known that hedge funds underperform the market while extracting huge fees, that's no big loss.

This change shouldn't affect startup companies. Those are almost always equity funded. Nobody loans to a startup that will probably fail. (There are some startups with complex debt/equity/warrant deals which exist to get the tax benefits of debt with the potential upside of equity. That's a tax gimmick, not lending.)

The overall effect is conservative. By removing a Government policy which distorts markets, we move back to a system where businesses are primarily equity-funded. It returns companies to their historical role as payers of dividends.

It's a good time for this change to business financing. Interest rates are very low, so the tax impact is also low.

<comment><USER8> One thing I don't understand from the Economist article: Is there a difference between (a) borrowing money and (b) borrowing land or machinery?

If a company cannot treat interest as a tax expense would that mean the cost of renting office space is also not allowed?

<comment><USER9> There are rules to decide whether a lease counts as an asset for the company (in which case part of the rent is interest).

IFRS states if any of these tests are met, the lease is considered a finance lease:

-ownership of the asset is transferred to the lessee at the end of the lease term;

-the lease contains a bargain purchase option to buy the equipment at less than fair market value;

-the lease term is for the major part of the economic life of the asset even if title is not transferred;

-at the inception of the lease the present value of the minimum lease payments amounts to at least substantially all of the fair value of the leased asset.

-the leased assets are of a specialised nature such that only the lessee can use them without major modifications being made.

US GAAP has a similar provision.

<comment><USER5> The accounting rules to classify leases as {financial; operating} exist to prevent companies from disguising financial leverage as operating leverage. They are intended to ensure that the balance sheet represents a true and fair view of the state of the company. They are not (primarily, at least) intended to ensure that companies are taxed appropriately.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but that's because it was irrelevant. The same rule (albeit more enforced) could be used for tax purposes in this case.

<comment><USER5> The tax implications are still, and will always be, irrelevant to accounting rules. The purpose of accounting rules (like IFRS, US GAAP etc.) is to ensure that companies' financial statements represent a true and fair view of the state of the company.

This objective has nothing to do with tax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Personally I don't see any reason to provide a mortgage interest deduction for homes, but any US politician who suggested removing it would be roundly ejected from office immediately, both because home buyers are used to the benefit and because it would align that politician against powerful interests (construction, banking, and the money managers in government).

So as an intellectual exercise... yeah, sure. And there are probably deductions businesses take that could be curtailed. But politics is the art of the possible, and removing the mortgage interest deduction in the US ain't ever going to happen.

<comment><USER11> The experiment has already been done in the UK. House buyers stopped being able to get a tax deduction on their mortgage interest in 2000 [1], people still buy houses today.

The problem in the UK is that companies can still deduct the mortgage interest, this puts people who buy property to rent out at an advantage.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_interest_relief_at_so...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_interest_relief_at_source)

<comment><USER5> People who buy property to rent out also have to pay tax on the rental income. It's just like any other business. You pay tax on your profit (revenue less costs). In this case interest just happens to be one of the costs.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say these people have an 'advantage'?

<comment><USER12> > I'm not sure what you mean when you say these people have an 'advantage'?

People who buy-to-let are not in the rental-income business, they are in the business of acquiring property, because property prices are sky rocketing.

People with a job trying to get on the property ladder pay mortgage interest with wages. People with second, third etc. properties deduct mortgage interest as an expense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The reason to do the same in the corporate world is that the debt bubble is not only a retail debt bubble. Companies and states are also overusing debt.

LBOs are essentially leveraged tax arbitrage structures because tax deductibility gives a strong incentive to leverage, a large part of the economy is now overleveraged because of these structures. And we need to stop with this idea that more debt is a hammer for every problem.

</comment><comment><USER13> Tax-deductible debt as it relates to financial engineering is what is tough to rationalize. For example, the primary function of a PE-fund is to buy ownership of a company by levering it up and then capturing tax shields (US debt subsidy in this article). This is where 99% of the value generated by a fund comes from. In my view, this is more or less a direct transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the PE-fund.

<comment><USER14> Is this true?

<comment><USER13> You could argue that the 'discipline of debt' imposed on the management of PE- bought companies improves operational efficiency - because they need to generate steady cash flow to delever the company. However, these guys lever to the hilt with tonnes of cheap debt for a reason, though it's cheap it still results in huge tax shields.

<comment><AUTHOR> Having worked at a company in the throes of private equity management, I can affirm that such "improvement" is _not_ a universal phenomenon. PE funds take baths too.

<comment><USER15> What does take a bath mean in this context? I keep hearing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> To have very disappointing returns on an investment. Similar to "get soaked", "get cleaned out", etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A key thing missing from the blog post about the article is that to raise money instead of taking on debt companies would have more reason to issue equity instead or various types of convertible notes.

</comment><comment><USER17> The writer fails to understand that the debt interest costs are not comparable to business costs, but dividend payments on equity. Interest cost is a payment for capital, as is dividend. If debt is favored in taxation over equity, it causes the companies to be overleveraged, and I do not see what is the benefit for society from that. (Note that the capital structure of company does not in theory affect total value of business, see Modigliani & Miller)

<comment><USER5> "Interest cost is a payment for capital, as is dividend."

This is incorrect. Dividends are a distribution of money to those who already owned the money. There is no economic transaction taking place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Url changed from [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/05/28/economist- maga...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/05/28/economist-magazine- argues-against-tax-deductible-debt/), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER19> Doesn't the market just build in the tax deductions into the prices?

<comment><USER20> If that is the case, there is no disadvantage to removing the tax deductions.</comment></comment>


EA closes SimCity servers for maintenance - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/06/ea-closes-simcity-servers-for-maintenance-and-even-the-alert-message-is-broken/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure how this is news. Every online only game goes down for maintenance regularly.

<comment><USER3> It's relevant because SimCity _isn't_ an online game. The online part is only DRM.

I guarantee you there are pirates out there playing happily without servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a fair bit of necessary online functionality in SimCity. The main newsworthy story is that the SimCity franchise has been up to this point a single player game, but it's been transitioned into a wholly multiplayer game, so when the servers go down it's not possible to play the game at all. Long time SimCity fans that simply want to build a city by themselves are not happy.

As well the game was released only yesterday and many have struggled to play it at all due to clogged/unavailable servers. I thought it was newsworthy that EA has struggled to provide a reasonable uptime to such a major release.</comment></comment></comment>


Filepicker.io launches Django, Rails, PHP, Phonegap libraries - <AUTHOR> https://www.filepicker.io/products/libraries/

<comment><AUTHOR> Let us know if there are other backend libraries or plugins you'd like to see! And of course, pull requests are encouraged on the libraries

<comment><USER2> Awesome stuff! Just saw the new pricing updates too, nicely done! Filepicker is going to be perfect for my next project :)

I just whipped up an add-on for my own PHP CMS here too (based on your Cake example):

<https://github.com/jbroadway/filepicker>

Cheers!

<comment><USER3> Good pricing change ... I was hesitant to try this out because I already have an S3 upload option and the old pricing plan had S3 upload only on the $50/month plan. With the free plan I can try things out without having to start paying right away — very cool.

The GMail integration is awesome as well — I can see my clients really liking that.

Going to have another look at this. Nice work all!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should really pay a designer a couple of hundred bucks to spice up that default bootstrap theme in my opinion. Standard bootstrap looks like a weekend hack to me (and probably a huge part of your target audience) and your service is so much more than that.

The libraries look great by the way!

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually got a great looking design all ready to go, we just have to find the time to get around and actually code it up! Figured we'd add the functionality to the core product first before sprucing up our site/marketing side of things

<comment><USER5> Want some help with that? :-)

(Seriously though, if you're looking for a front-end guy with a formal design background, drop me a line!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm excited to try Filepicker.io in an upcoming project _but_

Why on earth does it need "Post on my behalf" permissions for Facebook? I'm guessing FB will be a popular sources of images for many, but this just adds another (confusing IMO) step in the authorization process. Yes, I know it's an optional permission but totally unnecessary IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree - I really don't like the language Facebook uses for this. We need the ability to save photos back into your facebook, which facebook considers to be a "Post". We explicitly turn off notifying your friends, so we don't spam the world whenever you save a photo, but facebook still considers this a post and requires the corresponding permissions

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is excellent. If only I could convince certain folks to move away from their flash-based uploaders, then we'd be in business. ;)

I'll keep at it!

</comment><comment><USER8> Any plans for a non-JavaScript fallback? I love the concept but using it would break our site's ability to work without JS. We currently upload files directly to S3 using their signed hidden form field feature, but I'd love to be able to enhance the experience for JS capable devices without breaking it for everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER9> love it. the pace these guys develop at is insane.

</comment><comment><USER10> I just tried installing the Rails gem but it is telling me that it can't be found on rubygems.org... anyone else having a problem? Seems like this is too new to have on StackOverflow.

<comment><USER11> Ah. Sorry about the oversight. Should now work on rubygems.org

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks good.

Demo is a bit disconcerting when it scrolls the background even though popup looks modal. thx

</comment><comment><USER13> Can this be used for large (100-500M) files? If not, is there a similar service that is good for that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, we can handle up to 50Gb (so far)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, either PHP is a framework, or Django, Rails, Phonegap are programming languages ?

<comment><USER15> Just the title is wrong, on the website they say CakePHP

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> one question. I recall from reading earlier posts that filepicker.io backend is built primiarly on Flask framework. Are you including library for Flask as well ?

<comment><AUTHOR> We were looking at flask, but weren't sure the best way to make it a "library" - most of the basic functionality can be done via the requests library, for example.

With Rails, Django, etc. we were able to build into the ORMs and templating engine in a way that made for some cool magic.

<comment><USER17> any chance you could bake in functionality for WTForms instead? since a number of flask users use that as a form handling library.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks to Max Tilford who helped with the Ruby gem.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is .io the new, trendy, hipster TLD? Why?

<comment><USER19> Nice and short? .com not available? .io being related to the business? Could be anything really.</comment></comment>


RetroArch 1.3 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-1-3-released/ <comment><USER2> RetroArch is the backend that powers OpenEmu on OS X: [http://openemu.org](http://openemu.org)

It's also used by the RetroPie project for the Raspberry Pi, which has made my living room TV a lot more fun: [http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/](http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/)

<comment><USER3> It's actually unrelated to OpenEmu. They have their own cores some of which are based on RetroArch cores but they don't use RetroArch cores directly.

<comment><USER2> Today I learned! Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


Get Google's New Search Bar Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/245313/get_googles_new_search_bar_now.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I've already got it. This will take some warming-up to. The old "Google" search page shows up with the new menu on the left.

When you start typing in the search field for anything in particular, the field jumps up to the top.</comment>


Disabling JavaScript: Asking the wrong question - <AUTHOR> http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/DisablingJavaScriptAskingTheWrongQuestion

<comment><USER2> Sounds to me like he's saying that there are many reasons why the 2% of users that didn't run Javascript might have that situation.

Sounds to me like that means less than 2% actually disabled their Javascript, then.

So the original conclusion is still valid: An insignificant number of users have turned Javascript off.

To be clear: Sites that don't -need- Javascript should provide fallbacks for those who don't want the fancy extras and just want base functionality. A contact form should not require Javascript. Of course, that means that user will have to wait for full page refreshes just to see if their data validates. They've made that choice. Everyone with Javascript on can have instant validation and Ajax submissions and have a better experience.

<comment><USER3> Sounds to me like he's saying there are many reasons why javascript may not execute in a browser, and that users suffering from some of those reasons are not included in that 2% figure due to methodological errors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is pointless... it's basically a collection of what ifs.</comment>


An experimental, invite-only peer review community for just about anything - <AUTHOR> http://wereview.io/

<comment><USER2> ...about which there is apparently no more information than this single line.

Give us a clue what you're planning?

<comment><AUTHOR> The concept is one line long. I didn't see a reason the add too much wording at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> An interesting concept.

However, as the number of reviewers grows, how do you maintain quality?

In the limit, the system becomes one in which anyone can sign up. So how do you maintain quality once the floodgates eventually open?

(Saying: "That won't happen" is not a good answer. There has to be some notion of a reputation system.)

edit: With respect to the argument that the floodgates will not open, how will that occur? What is the model for keeping things a closed community? Nearly every "invite-only" community tends to get blown out after a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> The "floodgates" will not necessarily open. This is meant to remain an invite only community

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I understand you peer review "anything" but like most things in life, "everything" has finite bounds. It would be nice if you could let us know what "anything" is though. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> Were view?

For a moment I thought this had something to do with werewolfs.</comment>


Artemis unveils 'breakthrough' wireless broadband technology: pCell - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/19/steve-perlmans-artemis-unveils-his-breakthrough-wireless-broadband-technology-pcell/

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2817730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2817730)

</comment><comment><USER3> a. How is that onlive thing working out? b. Remember Digital Fountain? How'd that work out.

The guy sells snake oil. I don't get why press keep buying it.</comment>


Hacking sleep: being productive with 4 hours of sleep - <AUTHOR> http://www.bulletproofexec.com/7-steps-to-bulletproof-sleep-how-to-get-less-sleep-without-polyphasic-headaches/

<comment><USER2> Is this to be believed? Does somebody really start reading at 18 months?</comment>


Did Bill Gates Steal the Heart of DOS? - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/did-bill-gates-steal-the-heart-of-dos

<comment><USER2> A lame, meandering shaggy dog story written by someone who gives the impression he has never seen a programming language before in his life 'Breaking this statement down, I determined that "jnz" was a standard program assembly language statement for "jump if not zero."'. This guy supposedly does this for a living? This is ieee.org/software not The Sun (a british daily tabloid which caters for the retarded)

More sloppy still, part of the basis for this "investigation" is stuff downloaded from the web, which renders it devoid of any evidential value whatsoever.

<comment><USER3> > part of the basis for this "investigation" is stuff downloaded from the web

Actually, I thought that was the most clever thing in the whole investigation - using web searches to gauge how frequently constructs appear together can be used to flag areas for closer investigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"And that is that. Every lead brought me not to Bill Gates but to a dead end. QDOS was absolutely not copied from CP/M, and MS-DOS showed no signs of copying either. Kildall's accusations about Bill Gates were totally groundless."_

This article has a refreshing view of the story with lots of details. Instead of the classic "Bill Gates took advantage of Kildall" story that is often repeated, this is more about the many poor business decisions on Kildall's part. If this story is accurate, it would seem that Microsoft saw an opening when Kildall couldn't close the deal with IBM and took it. I don't see anything wrong with that.

<comment><USER3> Legend says Mary Gates' friendship with the then current IBM CEO played a role in IBM's favoring Microsoft's OS that didn't exist by then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope that the author was taking liberties with technical details to make it read like a detective story.

If that is how computer forensics really work, then the field is snake oil of the worst sort. I can understand how foolishness like the SCO and Oracle copy claims would arise from this sort of... I'm not even sure what to call it, it doesn't have the rigor of astrology.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sherlock Holmes would not be wearing a deerstalker. That's a hat for traveling and for doing things in rural areas. Holmes' profession requires blending in, and wearing a rural hat in a non-rural environment would stand out.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Jerry Pournelle/TWiT thing struck me as extremely odd. Is it really okay that someone who's a reporter makes statements that "he wrote the command down but has never shown it to anyone"? I'm not about to believe anything to do with him, anymore.

Other than that, I was surprised at how little the author seemed to actually know about programming. One doesn't have to be an expert in low-level languages to be a fantastic programmer nowadays, true, but if you're running a computer forensics firm?

</comment><comment><USER8> The title makes no sense. Even if QDOS had been copied from CP/M, it wouldn't have been Bill Gates who stole it. It would have been the guy who sold it to Bill Gates, and Gates would have had no way of knowing that it was stolen.</comment>


Police Have Seized the Server That Hosted BlueLeaks - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj43xq/cops-seize-blueleaks-ddosecrets-server <comment><USER2> I'm not familiar with German law. Is this kind of censorship and attack on the press normal or legal there?

<comment><USER3> Depends on the judge. In Bavaria everything is possible.

In this case a lot of personal information of officers was leaked, and German judges are very sensitive on privacy violations.</comment></comment>


Why the assholes are winning: money trumps all - <AUTHOR> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joms.12177/full <comment><USER2> Redirects to [http://127.0.0.1/](http://127.0.0.1/)</comment>