Rain ruins one of Norway's richest men - <AUTHOR> https://citizen.co.za/news/news-world/2009424/rain-ruins-one-of-norways-richest-men/ <comment><USER2> Most people are missing an important point. From FT Website:

> That prompted Nasdaq to cut the entire trade on Wednesday and the exchange > confirmed that the loss accounted for all of the exchange's own default fund > of €7m and swallowed €107m, or two-thirds, of its €166m mutual default fund > that clearing house members must contribute to.

So a single, one person trader was able to basically bankrupt the Nasdaq insurance fund. This fund is supposed to cover all of the margin trading misfortunes but a single guy/position took it all away.

This means that the Nasdaq (and probably any other exchange) is not ready for a volatility event. In the case of extreme volatility, the Nasdaq insurance fund will be 0. Counterparties in derivatives won't get paid, and potentially the mutual funds/etfs/other structures depending on these derivative trades will collapse.

The next financial crisis is just one trade away.

Edit: re-reading and searching further, it looks like the fund that was depleted was not that of the Nasdaq but rather a mutual fund for several exchanges. The Nasdaq had only 7m euros. What a joke.

<comment><USER3> You're saying he traded directly with Nasdaq, not through a prime broker or corporate entity?

For your average reader, most funds don't have an account directly with the exchange. They go to a Prime Broker such as GS, JPM, MS, etc, who keep an eye on the exposures of their accounts and limit what orders can go into the exchange. So for instance I ran a couple of hedge funds, and we'd get risk reports from the PBs which told us how much they were willing to let us trade. Also they'd do things like allow you to cancel risks across accounts if you owned a stock in one place but were short another. And they'd have risk models that looked at how correlated your positions were.

Now that's not to say that Nasdaq can then just be reckless, but normally the PBs are very large banks that have capital requirements, and even if things go badly, chances are someone will decide they're too big to fail.

PS. This PB thing can go wrong as well, but the idea is there's a degree of containment and incentive to keep things sensible. The senior guy at one of my PBs was fired because he allowed an Arab sheikh to gamble with too much leverage, and the sheikh lost hundreds of millions and ate up the bank's capital. (You're supposed to ask for enough margin that you don't lose your own money.)

<comment><USER4> As I understand it, he was such a big player that he didn't need a broker / basically was a broker himself.

<comment><USER5> Yes, as I also understands it he was a direct member of the exchange. When this happened he owned 23 Twh of nordic and 11 TWh of german power derivatives contracts. That is 1/4 of Norway's consume in 1 year: [https://www.hegnar.no/Nyheter/Energi/2018/09/Derfor-tapte- Ei...](https://www.hegnar.no/Nyheter/Energi/2018/09/Derfor-tapte-Einar-Aas- alt)

He basically did become to big for the marked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Working at one of the top 5 members of that clearing house in Scandinavia, very few people I've spoken to about it at work earlier this week thinks he is actually bankrupt. He's filing for bankruptcy so that he won't have to cover his own loss.

<comment><USER7> Is that even possible under Norwegian law? To my understanding, Aas has been trading as a private individual, meaning not through an LLC (an AS in Norwegian terminology). If the rumors I'm hearing are correct, this was in order to avoid publishing his trades and profits, which he would have been required to do if he was trading through an AS.

Personal bankruptcy is a very pietistic, convoluted procedure in Norway. It requires giving up all your assets and surrendering all of your income (above a sustenance limit) to creditors for five years, and can only be done once in your life. If Aas is going this route, he will not be able to save any owned assets from the proceedings, and will more or less consent to being a debt slave for the next half-decade. That's an extreme measure that people only do when there is no other option. (The default option being to just not pay anything and leave creditors hanging indefinitely, with the expected consequences for any personal financial endeavor in the future).

So at most this is a play to negotiate with creditors, if the understanding I have is correct. There would be no way to save any assets if actual bankruptcy is the chosen move.

You seem to know a lot about this, though, given that you work with this. Are there some facts here that I'm not aware of?

<comment><USER8> Would this cover assets not directly owned by him, or assets owned abroad etc ? some loophole which would allow him to retain some chunk of his wealth?

While it likely that it is negotiation tactic, it has to believable one for creditors to think he may actually follow through, otherwise there is no point.

<comment><USER7> I am aware of no such loopholes. Foreign assets can of course be hidden from the authorities, but they will be confiscated if discovered. Any shares in companies or properties will be confiscated and liquidated, as will any payouts from life insurance policies and such. (Unless I'm very mistaken, all income counts).

As will any primary residence if it has a higher standard or price than the sustenance minimum, any vehicles not required to perform work, any household items beyond a minimum of ~$10k or so in value. It's quite harsh.

If married, the spouse can keep 50% of any assets that were jointly owned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I often wonder why people who have so much money already gamble like that to get even more money. If I had roughly a million dollars I'd put it in an index fund and live a happy live without having to worry about work or money. Yet people like that guy have a hundred times more money than I'd need for the rest of my life and risk it all to become even richer.

<comment><USER10> You can't get a 350 sq meter rooftop home in Oslo with only 1 million dollar.

That would barely get you a flat in SF/NYC/HongKong/London. It really takes $10M to be comfortable.

<comment><USER11> Meanwhile I've done the math and 2 million USD would let me live my current comfortable middle class lifestyle (single and childless) indefinitely here in Montreal with excessively conservative financial assumptions, without earning income, and without drawing down the principal. That budget includes more than mere necessities, like vacations and tech purchases.

That's not my current net worth, to be sure, nor would I necessarily stop earning income if it were.

It's just a nice example to highlight of a world-class city that isn't that expensive all things considered.

<comment><USER12> How long did you assume you'd be living and how did you assume to store this value? Because if left on it's own, just 30 years from now these $2M will likely have much lower purchasing power (even if stored on savings account and even no black swan financial event happens during that time).

<comment><USER13> 4% draw down on a stock index fund will likely pay 80k anually adjusted for inflation indefinitely.

At least, this is based on historic stock data However, I was taught in undergrad econ, that this 4% return above inflation is considered the risk premium, over what a CD would get you. So there is a real risk of losing everything. Which means hedging is a good idea, some of the money to buy a reasonable house, some %age of rest in bond fund, and quarterly rebalancing can go a long way to preserve a lot of wealth in a black swan event.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, it's more like 2M will let you live confortable indefinitely in 90% of future scenarios. So there is still an y% chance you might have to go back to work again.

<comment><USER11> Even if I get to that level of net worth - which, as I noted, I'm not at yet - I'd probably still have some earned income. I could just care much less about how much and could be a lot choosier about what work I want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> He got it by gambling, he lost it gambling. So what.

The sad thing here is that it is indicative of how extremely wealthy people often get that way. The system should reward innovation, hard work etc, but instead it is skewed towards gambling, system-gaming, rent-seeking and so-on.

<comment><USER16> The system never has rewarded hard work on its own.

100 people work hard. 10 of them are lucky and see the benefits. 90 of them aren't lucky and don't see the benefits

Everyone looks at the 10 who are lucky, and they say "The key to success is to work hard". Classic survivorship bias.

<comment><USER17> It doesn't hurt that those lucky 10 also work hard. Or may be 9 of them do. Lucky wouldn't appear on your door.

Also, you gave the impression that the other 90 are losers because they work hard. Life is not an extreme. They may not become as rich, but they aren't poor either, and they maybe lucky in other metrics. They aren't loser.

<comment><USER16> Maybe some do. I'm lucky I don't know the meaning of the word 'work hard'. I'm sitting here on a sunday afternoon working, or rather waiting for things to go wrong. Sure it's a 12 hour day, but it's not hard working.

Those holding down two jobs and doing 80 hours/week of non-stop work on their feet filling amazon deliveries or cooking burgers or picking fruit for minimum wage know what working hard is. I doubt anyone ever became independently wealthy through hard work.

Is it right our society is set up to reward luck above all else?

<comment><USER18> Is someone making a career out of amazon deliveries or burger flipping or fruit picking really a good demonstration that hard work is not rewarded? That's merely hard physical labor. How about hard work like making sacrifices today so that tomorrow you're not competing in the deep end of the labor pool? I'm not sure that society is really just rewarding luck.

<comment><USER16> It's not just rewarding luck, but luck is a massive part. For every college dropout that goes on to form microsoft or facebook, there's 1000 college dropouts whose business fails because they weren't in the right place at the right time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Finance jargon is impenetrable.

Aren't you supposed to gamble with a fixed percentage of your money in case a long tail event happens? From an outsider's point of view, that seems like rule number one.

Questions about NASDAQ:

      - What is NASDAQ? Wikipedia says they're a "stock exchange",
        which supposedly means they provide a place for people to
        trade in stocks and bonds and various other "securities".
      - How was NASDAQ affected by this guy's decisions? Are they trading something?

Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER20> If he were successful with the gambling the news title would probably be different.

It's not the rain that ruins him, it's his decisions.

</comment><comment><USER21> One of the most important thing to learn when trading is risk management, how to preserve your capital. Being wrong is part of trading, staying wrong isn't.

It's especially interesting to see it happen to someone that actually worked as a risk manager in his early days ; especially so close to the anniversary of Lehman's demise.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Aas bet that the spread between energy prices on the Nordic and German > electricity markets would narrow.

I'm not super familiar with finance but this is a 'derivative' right? Is there a website where you can follow these types of large derivative investments? The type that gamble on market trends like this?

I'm curious what other types of things people are gambling large funds on. Or even large short positions...

<comment><USER23> Yes, specifically spread betting, which is illegal in the US, but more common overseas I believe, because it basically is pure gambling. The other variations that are legal in the US are futures and options, with the latter being the most similar to spread betting I think.

Futures is a market to reduce risk for commodities producers. Options are higher risk I want to say?

Search around Investodpedia for better explanations; really good site that one.

EDIT: or maybe the spread referred to in the article is on the options market. I'll have to reread.

<comment><USER3> Betting on a spread is not spread betting. You can but Coke and sell Pepsi, you then have a position in the spread. That's not spread betting, which is just a retail way to gamble on a price movement.

You cannot say options are more risky than futures, the two are related but different in nature.

Whether he implemented his trade in the options or futures is irrelevant, there was always going to be a blowout risk.

Source: I'm an ex options and futures trader.

<comment><USER24> why ex? i.e. why you stopped? (i am learning about options trading right now)

<comment><USER3> Moved around to other financial business, mainly quantitative trading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Living in Norway currently it is absolutely crazy to me so many electricity companies trading middlemen making money just by trading they don't don't produce or supply just pure middlemen. I heard of some scamming companies too. I just said no to a fixed price binding contract which would have been a disaster. Now I have the cheapest prices of the year so far! It is completely non Norwegian from my experience. Everything else is so monopolizes and controlled here.

<comment><USER26> > they don't don't produce or supply just pure middlemen

They produce liquidity and price discovery, which are extremely important. Most energy companies don't know what the "efficient" (market clearing) price for power is and also want to mitigate the risks they inherently face by supplying these markets. Speculators allow natural longs like energy companies to hedge risk (reduce their risk) so that they can focus on the things they're good at: building, maintaining and operating power generation and distribution. If you're not an expert trader, which most utility CEOs are not, how can you invest in projects for the next 5, 10 or 50 years without markets that allow you to lay off some of the price risk of the good you're producing (power). This dynamic is what is facilitated by so called middlemen. They are absolutely essential, even if there are spectacular failures like this from time to time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> When you're young and you can absorb total losses, big bets (high risk/high return) are ok. Mid-life and beyond, it's nuts to be risked or leveraged to the point where you could lose everything.

I can't say how he thinks, but some people have earned or lucky successes that give them a sense of invulnerability... and then they take unreasonable risks. This seems like one of those cases.

</comment><comment><USER28> At least he went bust, rather than faking balance sheets to hide losses, borrowing and getting deeper in the hole, like Enron.

</comment><comment><USER29> How is this kind of derivative trading any different than online poker on credit? Turns out the other guy had the nuts, well sucks to be a norwegian tax payer I guess.

Yeah, sure we need liquidity and market makers do have a job, but this makes the nasdaq look like a mismanaged casino..

</comment><comment><USER30> Attorneys drafting derivative contracts need boundary conditions so this doesn't happen. The boundary conditions would also signal to those who rely on them to get protection if a boundary is hit. Zero and infinity are simply ignored.

</comment><comment><USER31> How did it happen that default funds of the clearing houses had to be accessed? Did the spread change _in one day_ from normal spread to 17 times normal? Otherwise the margin should have depleted only his own money.

</comment><comment><USER32> Another instance of greedy forecasting gone wrong. We (all of us) never learn.

<comment><USER22> This was ultimately just a transfer of wealth between two parties. There wasn't much of a loss for society as a whole (besides maybe to Aas's creditors and the clearing house but they can handle this risk)...

<comment><USER4> The fund that got depleted has to be topped off again, with money from the other participants in the market. Fortum, for instance, will have to pay ~23M euro, and is largely owned by the Finnish state. Same goes for lots of the other players.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Honestly I dont understand why NASDAQ could be involved if he was trading european electricity. Even if he was trading ADRs they'd be on NYSE.. The article must be missing a few details.

<comment><USER34> Nasdaq Inc (as opposed to the NASDAQ Stock Market it owns and operats) has more than a few subsidiaries, and operates many markets around the world: [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1120193/000119312512...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1120193/000119312512077518/d259668dex211.htm)

<comment><USER35> In particular [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasdaq_Nordic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasdaq_Nordic)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_energy_market](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_energy_market)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> debtors prison? i kind of like the concept of paying in real life for things like this. he gambled with somebody else's money. and lost. if he just goes bankrupt and gets debt payment assistence without suffering anymore consequence than having to live a normal persons life for once, its not quite enough for the damage he has wrought.

<comment><USER37> Historically, debtors prisons never ended up being for rich people who lost more money than they had, they always seemed to end up primarily with poor people who took out loans to stay alive and then couldn't pay back because they were unlucky.

<comment><USER36> oh well, one can dream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Rich people are a huge benefit of the system. Think of Elon Musk putting his wealth into SpaceX or Bill Gates into charity work. The fact that people who've demonstrated the ability to successfully manage capital investment and innovation get to control more resources is a positive feature.

<comment><USER39> I don't care about SpaceX. It doesn't benefit me at all in any way. In fact, some of my tax money probably subsidizes those spaceships so that big telecom companies can launch their satellites into space more cheaply and juice more profits out of my current ADSL contract; which won't get cheaper.

I appreciate Bill Gate's charity work but I understand that it also doesn't benefit me personally - It probably costs me as well. Lifting people out of poverty means that they will be able to get an education to compete against me in the job marketplace in the future and will lower my wage. I can cope with that on a moral basis, but I'm pretty sure that Bill Gate's donations cost me more (in terms of how it affects my humble net worth) than it costs Bill Gates himself (in terms of how it affects his net worth).

<comment><USER40> Bill Gates is worth ~96B as of September 1st, according to Forbes. A report from last August noted he had so far donated ~50B. So, you would profess that the resultant effect on your employment market from Gates' donations has negatively impacted your salary by more than 50%? That sounds like a preposterous claim, but obviously one that cannot be proven.

<comment><USER41> Meaningless relative comparison, and you know that.

<comment><USER40> Point is, that in relative terms, Gates' donations absolutely _don't_ cost OP more than they do Gates.

<comment><USER39> As a software developer who works in Europe, a large proportion of my colleagues come from developing countries and they have a great work ethic, so it doesn't seem that far-fetched that the added competition would have a significant negative impact on wages in my industry across Europe.

I agree that it's very complex though and we can't really measure how much Bill Gates' philanthropy may have contributed towards this trend.

I just wanted to point out that good things tend to have negative unintended side effects. For every deal, there is always a winner and a loser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Good. More from among the richest should follow him.

<comment><USER43> Who do you think was on the other side of this bet?

<comment><USER44> Mind if I ask who? Honest question :).

<comment><USER43> I don't know, it's not even exactly clear to me what kind of trade was in play here. My point was, the other side probably wasn't Joe Average. IOW, while you can frame this as a rich man losing due to greed, that's just another way of saying some other rich person won big.

Exaggerating here, there were probably multiple counterparties and I'd think they were probably institutional investors, or maybe power companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Poor guy, he bet money, he lost.

Hundreds do that too in casinos and lotteries.

Why do we need news about that?

<comment><USER46> This one almost bankrupted the casino too. That's pretty newsworthy.

<comment><USER45> You are right, I did not understand fully the article and the consequences of his actions</comment></comment></comment>


What makes code "Swifty"? - <AUTHOR> https://www.swiftbysundell.com/articles/what-makes-code-swifty <comment><USER2> The title here is misleading. Most of this applies to Objective-C. There's nothing wrong with the article as far as programming advice goes, but it has nothing to do with Swift idioms.

> So, to make our code more "Swifty" from a performance point of view, > sometimes all that we have to do [is literally the same thing we would do in > Objective-C]

Is anyone writing consistently good, up-to-date Swift documentation for experienced programmers? Some of the early books haven't been updated since the earliest Swift versions.

SwiftUI is very poorly documented by Apple and much of the third-party SwiftUI docs are for the obsolete WWDC version.

<comment><USER3> > Most of this applies to Objective-C.

Objective-C's type system is much poorer than Swift's, and it lacks a number of expressive operations. The "before" examples are generally how a lot of people would actually write code in Objective-C.

<comment><USER4> Which ones?

I wrote ObjC for 7 years, Swift for 3. I only looked at the first two examples, they both were generic programming advice, nothing to do with the language

<comment><USER3> The first three. Objective-C doesn't have enums with associated values and it's common to store things in heterogeneous collections or stringly-keyed collections. Creating protocols for generic constraints is also rare–informal protocols (respondsToSelector, anyone?) are instead quite prevalent. And Objective-C's "collection" APIs are much less powerful than Swift's: I might use a regex replacement instead of four calls to replacingOccurrences(of:with:), but it's the same principle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh how wonderful will it be to program front end and backend web apps with Swift, I just can't wait

<comment><USER6> I'm hoping apple starts to take the cross platform story more seriously. It sounds like it's a big topic for the release of 6. I find it to be a really pleasant and productive language to work in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Performance is not really a USP of Swift. It's certainly possible to write high-performance Swift code (with the help of a lot of profiling) but if your main concern is performance, you would be much better served reaching for Rust or C/C++.

IMO the most important things about Swift code is that it has nice safety features, and it is easy to write clear, self-documenting code.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd love to see Sundell go and optimize the code on the Computer Language Shootout so we could see its potential in a swifty way.

</comment><comment><USER9> there's always been something i wondered about swift : how does it compare to other PL in terms of performance ?

The initial promise was to have it be comparable to other compiled languages ( java , c++, whatever), but i've yet to find a real benchmark.

Or rather, the ones i've seen made it look more on the range of interpreted/dynamic languages ( ruby / python or node), at least for server side projects. Which came as a surprise to me.

Has any real work been work on that issue somewhere ?

<comment><USER10> Rather slow currently, thanks ARC.

[https://github.com/ixy-languages/ixy-languages](https://github.com/ixy- languages/ixy-languages)

<comment><USER7> This is not a good representative benchmark for Swift. It uses lots of reference counted objects within tight loops, which is a worst-case for Swift. It's also not idiomatic Swift - classes are used in many places where they should not be.

Also, it's a benchmark which needs special hardware to be run, so it's not easy to try to reproduce or improve on this result.

<comment><USER10> The same conditions apply to all languages.

<comment><USER7> No they don't. GC language, for example, are more sensitive to memory pressure to reference counting overhead.

<comment><USER10> First, Swift is also a GC language.

Secondly, with exception of Java, the remaining ones on that benchmark support value types and native heap allocations.

<comment><USER7> We can get into semantics all day, but the point still stands that different languages are going to perform differently on any given benchmarks due to the performance constraints of that language.

Also I would love to see an implementation of the swift benchmark which doesn't lean on reference types, which is not idiomatic swift and is likely the reason the ARC penalty is so high here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Linksys WRT1900AC is the spritual successor to the WRT54G - <AUTHOR> http://semiaccurate.com/2014/01/06/linksys-wrt1900ac-spritual-successor-wrt54g/

<comment><USER2> The article doesn't say which wireless chipset it is using (only that it's Broadcom).

> Yes it looks like Belkin actually understands what the word "open" means and > why. Yay!

I will believe that only once I see that the wifi chip is using a vanilla kernel driver and not some binary Broadcom driver that will tie you to a specific kernel for years to come (as has been the case with the WRT54 for years until the b43 open source driver was matured).

And I would have liked to learn how much RAM this thing has. Some routers currently come with quite a lot of it, eg TP-Link WDR4300 with 128 MB ([http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl- wdr4300](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr4300)) — that's one of my current favourites for building appliances with OpenWRT.

</comment><comment><USER3> >On the back of the device there are four GbE ports

I really wish at least 8 LAN ports would become the standard rather than 4. The stock response is "LOL it's not a problem because WiFi." But I don't want a dozen devices contending for the WiFi of the router. I want most of my devices to be on wired connections with (ideally) the only WiFi devices being phones.

So far the only router that seems to feature 8 GbE ports --and has support for flashing OpenWRT or Tomato or whatever-- is one from Mikrotik under the "RouterBOARD" brand: [http://routerboard.com/RB493G](http://routerboard.com/RB493G) ; casing, power adapter, and antennae sold separately. Does anyone know of any other, better, options?

edit: wrong link. fixed.

<comment><USER4> I can't provide any other options. But I can 'vouch' for Routerboard. We use their products in a carrier grade environment, for almost consumer-prices. The RouterOs isn't 'next next finish' you have to put some time in it. But check out the leaflet which features there are available. If you want a 'cheap' high-end router with some nice features available (SFP's, true port-mirroring, vlans and integrated hotspot functionality) Routerboard are definitly worth exploring. [http://www.mikrotik.com/pdf/what_is_routeros.pdf](http://www.mikrotik.com/pdf/what_is_routeros.pdf)</comment></comment>


Vector Muni Map (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://transit.511.org/static/providers/maps/SF_123200991008.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> To my knowledge this is the most recent vector Muni map. Anybody know why the more recent ones are only available raster, and why this downgrade happened?</comment>


Ask HN: As College Grad, how to increase my chances of getting an interview call? - <AUTHOR> Apart from applying on LinkedIn and the company's careers site, what would be the other ways to get my profile/application noticed by the recruiters?<p>Shed some light on this, HNers! <comment><USER2> Depending on the situation, directly reaching out to the actual decision maker is far more effective.

Every applicant is bombarding the recruiters with resumes, and it can sometimes be a black hole. If you directly send a message to the CTO/VP/Director of Engineering, introducing yourself, briefly describing why the company appeals to you and how your skills line up, you're far more likely to get noticed. Yeah, it's bold, but you know what they say :)

Leave it open by saying you're interested in an informational chat just to learn more about the company and his job.

He gets that you're basically applying, given your background; but this softer approach communicates "I'm also interested in you and your company" versus "I didn't hear from the recruiter, here's my application."

This will set you apart and, worst case, he says no. But you may have a new networking contact for the future.

</comment><comment><USER3> Call up the recruiter a day after sending the CV. A lot of recruiters aren't that good at following-up, despite that being a basic part of the role.

Add their WhatsApp/Facebook, or if in APAC their WeChat. Send a polite follow- up.

If you don't know their name, like a generic group email or web application, trawl LinkedIn and click on contact details for relevant people.

When you get in contact with the recruiter, they will tell you the company name if they're decent. After they've had a follow-up call about you they should tell you the hiring person's name, so you can look them up yourself.

Dig, dig, dig.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just a few ways to open your options since these are how I got my jobs:

\- a small personal project was how i was able to get my first job

\- LinkedIn was not my primary source of job links. I googled for job search boards PER city/area/state. this one landed me my 2nd job because I found my company via geekwire.

</comment><comment><USER5> intern experience

opensource projects on github</comment>


Ask HN: A Business Guy Getting Hired at a Startup, Help Please - <AUTHOR>

Hi Hacker News,
I am a senior in college and am a business guy into all things tech and I have been offered a job right out of college to work for a hot startup in the online music space.  I have been interning there since October so they know that they want me to stay and have asked me to give them a salary amount they would need to match to keep me.
At the startup there's basically just the programmers and the customer service representatives, and to the best of my knowledge the reps make somewhere in the mid to low 30K's and I'm just guessing that the programmers make between 70k to 120k.
They've also offered stock options though I'm not as interested in that and would rather take a higher salary.
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> What did you do as an intern? If it was related to business development or sales, you should expect to make something in the 45K-60K range.

<comment><USER3> Possibly. Really depends on how this company structures their compensation relative to goals, milestones and role description.

If sales, how's commission structured? Is it more base than commission?

To to the OP, I'd really ask them what you'd be doing as "the business guy" because if you throw out the first number without having a clear idea of what typical comp is for a role like yours, you're not bargaining well or positioning yourself for a better turnout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Given the recent acquisition prices for 'hot music startups' (Lala, iMeem, etc.), I'd personally go for a higher salary.

</comment><comment><USER5> > They've also offered stock options though I'm not as interested in that and > would rather take a higher salary.

Why?

Yes, cash is something that you can spend now, but stock costs them less, so you might be able to get more NPV by loading up on stock.

Also, suppose that they brought in another intern (or two) with the difference between what you'd like and what you can live on. What would that do to the value of your stock? (John Elway diverted part of his salary to linemen. That was an investment in his career and health.)

You could negotiate a steady increase in pay, so your income grows as you change your lifestyle.

BTW - since you've been working there for a while, the cliff for vesting should be significantly less than it would be for a new hire.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've just heard a lot about stock options for employees and seen the math for it and how it really isn't a path to being rich and isn't that lucrative for a normal exit over so many years. I'd just rather not sacrifice salary at this point of my life for that.

<comment><USER5> > I've just heard a lot about stock options for employees and seen the math > for it

In other words, you haven't done the calculation for this circumstance. You're early enough that "the math" that you've seen may not apply.

You're not going to get rich from salary either, so the fact that stock options won't necessarily make you rich doesn't mean that they're a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone for the suggestions, that gives me a solid range. I am not in sales so there is no commission. I do solely business development and marketing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: Just in case anyone is wondering or will wonder in the future/be in my position, I ended up asking for $49,000.

</comment><comment><USER6> What city is the company in? More metro = higher cost of living.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not a metro place, the cost of living is pretty low actually.

<comment><USER6> In that case, if you can pay bills and live comfortably on whatever they offer, I'd say that experience > $$ earned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> depending on where you live i would say 40-60 would be good for a new graduate. remember, at this point in your story you want experience over money.</comment>


Facebook as Nonfad - <AUTHOR> http://unalone.net/facebook.html

<comment><USER2> Facebook is rotting from the inside out due to its lack of control of third- party applications. A year ago I could look at my "feed" and see interesting things that my friends were doing; now all I see is information about the (very) lame games they are playing.

Have you ever been over to a friend's house and watched them play a videogame? That's about how much fun Facebook has become, and the signal-to-noise ratio grows worse every day. If Facebook provides any "utility", as this article describes it, it is being strangled by the constant flow of boring information being auto-generated by these games and applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> It takes about one session of five minutes to block all those applications permanently. I haven't seen a single non-Facebook app in half a year, and before then I saw a handful at most.

The one thing Facebook doesn't do is regulate itself. If you want to block those things it takes a little initiative.

<comment><USER2> Interesting....how do you go about this?

I've been able to block application invitations, etc. but I've found no way to eliminate the "updates" from the news feed.

<comment><USER3> Click "Hide" next to the item in the feed you want to hide. You'll be able to either "Hide Julie" or "Hide FarmVille."

<comment><USER2> This is alright, but not much better than spam control from 2000 which is silly because unlike spam, Facebook knows what updates come from third-party apps...

...there should just be an "off" button

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why is this page styled with Facebook's CSS and header? Who is this written by?

<comment><AUTHOR> Me. The HTML page is directly taken from the original Facebook note.

I added an author cred to clear up confusion.

<comment><USER5> Interesting and effective

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's still a risk to Facebook that they'll come to be seen as stodgy as new generations come online. But given how well they've been conscious of, and managed, the risks of trends passing them by so far, I don't think it's a major threat.

In many ways Facebook's end-user lock-in is much stronger than even Google's lock on the search-user -- the folks who are now populating Facebook do not flitter to every new thing online, as a group, pulling all their relationships. (Google's economic lock on the advertising-clearinghouse side is still stronger.)</comment>


Ask HN: How to receive money when you don't trust the buyer? - <AUTHOR> I'm selling an Android app to somebody in Asia.  Unfortunately I have no reason to trust the buyer.
Wire transfers require my account numbers, and PayPal is too easily reversible.
Does anyone have experience with something like this?  How can I facilitate a transfer without leaving myself open to high risk? <comment><USER2> Looks for escrow services. That's how domains are usually sold. E.g. [https://www.escrow.com/](https://www.escrow.com/)</comment>


It's a Myth That Entrepreneurs Drive New Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2013/09/entrepreneurs_or_the_state_innovation_comes_from_public_investment.html <comment><USER2> Chomsky has been making this case for years. It's no fallacy. Every grant application I have submitted has a provision for transferring research products to business. Just fill out the appropriate entry. It is understood that you don't talk about how the government takes the risk out of business by funding R&D efforts through taxpayer-funded grant allocations to research institutions, subsidies to business, generous patent monopoly grants and other measures. The taxpayer funds business innovation but receives no equity. Downvote me libertarians: I will have a mathematical treat for you non- mathematical political pundits, in good time.

<comment><USER3> What exactly do you believe libertarians would disagree with in your post? I'm not a libertarian, but that the government privatizes gains and socializes losses, that they grant subsidies and monopolies to businesses, taking the risk out of them, seems perfectly aligned with what I read from libertarian sources.

Libertarians don't disagree that the government funds businesses, they disagree that it should do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is an example of the worst political commentary. It presents the context for this "observation" as being a decrease in both public debt and the size of the government. No such thing has happened or is likely to happen any time soon. The US federal government is the largest and most powerful state in the history of the world. There is no "cut" that could make that less true coming in the next few years at least.

The core issue is that while it may be true that the state does have initiatives to fund business innovation there is a false choice being presented. The example of Apple suggests that if the government didn't give them a grant they wouldn't exist. The problem is that we can't say that for certain at all. We don't know the outcomes in a world where the taxes or loans taken to pay for those grants didn't happen. It's not possible to say if the outcomes would be better or worse (for the cause of Apple Computer at least) had that grant not existed.

The state is a mixed bag. They currently take 15% of my income to pay for my "retirement" when if I had been able to save that I'd end up far more secure in my retirement than I will with social security. But that said they are using that money to pay for the life support that a lot of people need. Mix that with the constant wars and you can understand why crediting the state for its' light in a world of darkness is misguided.

There are a lot of other odd statements in here too such as describing the state as a risk taker as if the state is ever punished for its' failures. People don't even remember most of the CIA's failures as they line up for war behind its' current allegations in Syria.

<comment><USER5> This comment is an example of the worst political commentary. It doesn't even try to make sense, and is more a form of paranoid, libertarian verbal diarrhoea than an actual reasoned argument.

Libertarians would have a much easier time living with the government if they just thought of it as a corporation, upon whose land they work, live and play.

The 15% income fee is merely the cost of doing business.

Welcome to Disneyland, ahem, I mean, America.

<comment><USER6> Oh, but the issue is not whether we think of something as a "corporation" or not. After all, that's just playing with words.

The issue is, what happens if you decide you don't want to do business with that entity anymore?

In case of state, the punishment is prison and, resisting that, death. That is the part that libertarians object to, and it doesn't matter whether that entity calls itself "corporation", "mafia" or "government".

<comment><USER7> And if it wasn't a government but instead a corporation, the only thing that would change is that you don't even get to vote!

<comment><USER8> What nonsense. In a free market economy, you vote every time you voluntarily accept an offer. Not voting for a corporation, a vote that costs you your own money, is a vote against it, because corporations die by default. If ever people stop accepting new offers, the corporation will die. They can't force you to accept an offer or to pay for an offer accepted by someone else.

With a government -- or a corporation supported by crony capitalism, which is just more government -- a program doesn't have to convince the payers that it's worth paying for. It just has to convince those with the power to take money from others by force to do so and give them some of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Whether an innovation will be a success is uncertain, and it can take longer than traditional banks or venture capitalists are willing to wait. In countries such as the United States, China, Singapore, and Denmark, the state has provided the kind of patient and long-term finance new technologies need to get off the ground.

This is the crux of the problem and why the OP makes a compelling argument.

We live in a world of "innovation" where the driving force behind it is a conglomerate of VC's whose primary concerns are their multiples and the next fund. They are people without long-term vision.

We also live in a world where political are small men and women proposing small ideas because their primary concern is the next election cycle.

What ever happen to greatness?

"We're putting a man on the moon in 10 years." "We're building a national highway system." "We're building a weapon that will end wars."

Where did the will go? Where are the cries of:

"We'll be free of fossil fuels in 10 years." "We're sending a person to Mars by 2020."

Or if you like wars on abstract combatants that never end:

"The war on ignorance"

Someone needs some vision. And right now, nobody has it.

<comment><USER10> The Chinese Governemnt does. They had a plan to industrialize a country of a billion people, and they are half way through as the plan continues apace.

They didn't have a choice - population growth in an agrarian country was a disaster for the country. They had to do something or see their country plunge into famine and chaos. And therein may be your answer - they did it because they had to. Western societies can coast a long way on the momentum they have picked up earlier.

Necessity is the mother of innovation.

<comment><USER11> > Necessity is the mother of innovation.

It is, but it is not the driver of it. China was an agrarian country with insane population growth before Deng Xiaoping took office and yet the remedy of the government at that time was to increase population growth even further and spur on the youth in some sort of whack job ideological frenzy.

At some point, some people took some responsibility and turned the ship around. To my mind this is the most important thing to keep in mind about the current Chinese government: it may be staggeringly corrupt and have an absolutely frightening human rights record, but for the past thirty years it has done a surprisingly good job in reducing poverty for hundreds of millions of people. This does not mean they should be forgiven their abuses, but their successes definitely deserve credit.

<comment><USER10> > Deng Xiaoping took office and yet the remedy of the government at that time > was to increase population growth even further and spur on the youth in some > sort of whack job ideological frenzy.

Can you clarify? Wikipedia does not seem to support your statement: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping#Re- emergence_post...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping#Re- emergence_post-Cultural_Revolution)

Thanks.

<comment><USER11> Wack job ideological frenzy: the cultural revolution

Increase population growth: One of Mao's slogans was "The more people we are, the stronger we are". Some graphs here: [http://www.slideshare.net/isc/china- population-policies](http://www.slideshare.net/isc/china-population-policies)

<comment><USER10> But wait, this happened before Deng came to power. Deng oversaw dismantling of he cultural revolution, per above Wikipedia link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Martin Wolf reviewed Mazzucato's book in the Financial Times a couple weeks ago:

[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/32ba9b92-efd4-11e2-a237-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/32ba9b92-efd4-11e2-a237-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2dezeO157)

HN discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6194175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6194175).

I'm surprised at how controversial it is. The facts aren't in dispute. Are they?

</comment><comment><USER13> This essay makes a fallacy case, "it is this way, therefore it must be this way". It takes a lot of liberties with evidence to come to a crazy conclusion.

I grew up in a small state in Australia. Business there keeps close with state government: there is a stench of cronyism about much of what goes on. The standard business model there is to wait for a state government grant structure, and then weasel up to it with the right paperwork and hand-shaking to get what you want. Within the bureaucracy you have people lining themselves up to bounce out into firms.

The government maintains high taxes, and then spends those taxes either tying itself to emerging business like this, or propping up failing business like car companies. And it needs a large, skilled public service to keep it all moving. The result is that labour that could be used doing something people want is wasted, and it's harder to operate free business due to the high taxation and bureaucracy. It's not a stalled situation: many good people do still find good, rewarding local jobs creating real value despite this. But a lot of talent drains away, and there's not much innovation despite a healthy university culture.

The way things work in world cities is different and better. For the most part, the more government stays out of business, the more success there is.

Perhaps Apple did receive some benefits in the early years. Where benefits are there for the taking, it is rational to take them. But it is not evidence that such benefits were critical to the success.

Governments don't pick winners - only their mates. For progress, look elsewhere.

As an example of a paragraph that just doesn't work, "Other ways include giving the state bank or agency that invested a stake in the company. A good example is Finland, where the government-backed innovation fund SITRA retained equity when it invested in Nokia. There is also the possibility of keeping a share of the intellectual property rights, which are almost totally given away in the current system."

* Repeatedly we see state investments in companies pursuing political objectives with their shareholding at the expense of development or the company's interest. Look at the way Lower Saxony hampers Volkswagen's development. Or oil companies anywhere they have been nationalised (Venezuela, Mexico, Russia).

* Picking Nokia as an example of innovation?

* Intellectual property is an idea created entirely by government for the purpose of picking winners. It has no philosophical underpinning - it's just arbitrary regulation.

* "which are almost totally given away in the current system" \- what does this even mean?

Awful article.

<comment><USER14> China is pretty much a damning counter example to your whole rant, as was the Soviet Union. Two countries that were previously economic backwaters that became world powers because of directed government action.

<comment><USER15> China and Russia have been capitalist for decades. Russia is doing far better than its communist days, not to mention China.

<comment><USER14> First, neither China nor Russia are capitalist. They have market-ish economics with strong authoritarian government management of the economy. 43% of China's industrial and business profit results from state owned companies.

Second, Russia is doing better now than it was at the tail end of the Soviet Union, but technologically it progressed far more during Soviet rule than it has since. Before the Soviet Union Russia was a total, agrarian, rural backwater. Chronically a hundred years behind the rest of Europe. The Soviets built all the technology and infrastructure that is keeping the country going to this day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most companies drive what I like to call dipshit innovation. You know what I'm talking about. The new X sandwich from McDonalds. The new X flavor from Coca Cola. Repackaged servers from Amazon. The new X phone from Apple. A variant of an already existing drug X with a different name by Pfizer. These things are not hard to develop, and that makes sense, since a company's return horizon must be on the order of 7 years or less to stay in business. Things that only take 7 or so years to develop just cannot be that hard to do. To make real impact requires sustained investment at a loss over decade to century level time spans, a space in which only the largest companies in existence, namely nation states, can compete.

Now, that's not to say that we don't need dipshit innovation. Dipshit innovation does in fact serve a very useful purpose: it helps to reduce costs by forcing a diverse group of small agents to survive by maximizing short term profits, whilst simultaneously minimizing short term costs. Some of these profits can then be pushed back into creating the next wave of things that nation states help develop. This next wave can then be fed right back into the free market where once again a diverse group of capitalistic agents can copy, scale up and reduce the costs of the next generation of tech.

Problems seem to occur when there is too much of a focus on long term investment (Communist China's/Russia's fascination with producing iron), or when there is too much of a focus on short term investments (The world's fascination with short term leveraged trades before the global financial crisis).

You really want something of a 40-60 split of resources, with 40 being pushed back into government/public institutes for long term societal level investments, and the remaining 60 going back to the free market as an incentive for further cost reductions.

We need both types, in the right amounts, to keep the economy chugging along. We also need competent people working on both sides of the split for us to move forward. What we don't need is to deify one to the exclusion of the other.

Addendum: This talk is an amazing discussion of the ideas listed in my above hypothesis: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyp3Bw5H0VA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyp3Bw5H0VA) which was tipped to me from here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6310207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6310207).

It's always nice when others back up what you say. But it seems that I'm always a year late with said ideas (talk is from 2012, and I hadn't previously seen it).

I blame the state for funding such radical research. I blame YouTube for not showing me it earlier.

<comment><USER16> The vast majority of innovation comes from the private sector, but those innovations usually go unnoticed because they aren't ground-breaking or flashy, but are, instead, incremental. The 'dipshit innovations' you're referring to are all related to consumer products, but incremental innovations in private industry are what has driven the massive global increase in economic efficiency over the last half-century, which in turn is what has allowed us the standard of living that we enjoy today. Of course government innovations played a role in this process, but if necessity is the mother of all invention, then it seems obvious that had government not funded the creation of technology A, B, or C, and if there was truly a need for it, then they would have been invented anyways.

Furthermore, had the dollars that have been spent on government innovations been instead allowed to remain in circulation in the economy, how many more innovations would private industry had come up with? Put more succinctly, what is the opportunity cost of government innovation?

<comment><USER5> > _incremental innovations in private industry are what has driven the massive > global increase in economic efficiency over the last half-century, which in > turn is what has allowed us the standard of living that we enjoy today_

I agree. But this would not be possible without government investment at a loss to develop the very things the private sector incrementally innovates upon.

> _Of course government innovations played a role in this process, but if > necessity is the mother of all invention, then it seems obvious that had > government not funded the creation of technology A, B, or C, and if there > was truly a need for it_

Now here is where we diverge. Companies will not seek these type of innovations because those that do die before they can reap any profit.

> _Furthermore, had the dollars that have been spent on government innovations > been instead allowed to remain in circulation in the economy, how many more > innovations would private industry had come up with? Put more succinctly, > what is the opportunity cost of government innovation?_

Conversely, what is the opportunity cost of dipshit innovation? The answer is clear: lack of break through innovation. Hence why I advocate a split (40 long term government - 60 short term free market) in my above hypothesis. It's the best of both worlds; you don't short sell the future, whilst neither ignoring the present.

<comment><USER3> _Conversely, what is the opportunity cost of dipshit innovation? The answer is clear: lack of break through innovation._

How did you arrive to that conclusion? That's not clear to me at all. In fact, it's not clear to me that break through innovation would even be possible without incremental innovation, and vice-versa.

<comment><USER5> Hence why I advocate for a reasonable resource split where both are part of a virtuous positive feedback cycle. You can't have one without the other.

<comment><USER3> But then how can you claim that one has the other as an opportunity cost?

And besides, that you need the two types of innovations doesn't mean you need the state to produce one of them. I mean, maybe we do, but it's an orthogonal issue.

<comment><USER5> Think of the state like a massive conglomerate corporation with huge pockets, many sub-divisions, and long investment timelines and you'll understand my point of view.

My distinction between government and non-government is basically pocket book size and investment timeline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Terrence Kealey would disagree: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the- economi...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-economics-of- science)

<comment><USER18> 1\. He admits that he has no proof that private firms would take up the slack if government stopped funding basic science research - only his bizarre notion that science is NOT a public good.

2\. He says that government has a DUTY to fund defense research, so clearly his whole argument excludes innovations and contributions to GDP from defense research funded by the state.

In short, his argument is bollocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't really have that much to add, this just stood out to me as slimy:

"...the contract should have said: If and when the beneficiaries of the grant make $X billion, a contribution will be made back to the NSF."

This by definition would not be a grant. If you want to eliminate grants then by all means say so... Sometimes I look at the State as just another modern deity, and it demands worship and tribute. Especially for things it claims to have done in the past.

</comment><comment><USER20> I highly, highly recommend _Doing Innovation in the Innovation Economy_ by William Janeway to anyone who wants to truly understand the nature of our economy. It's basically this piece elaborated in exhaustive detail by a Ph.D economist and 40+ year veteran of the finance world. To me, it's at once a thorough investigation of the history of markets and the boom/bust cycle, a defense of Keynesianism and the State as an economic player, and a memoir of a pioneer of the modern venture capital industry.

Even more importantly, I think it's an incredible analysis of the actual nature of our economy. We've never actually been any sort of ideologically pure system, and Janeway argues that there's actually something very important about how our system historically has been, as opposed to what purist capitalists and socialists might have it be.

The biggest flaw of the book is that it really needed a gifted editor. There's _a lot_ to the book, and it could have benefited from much more careful organization. Janeway seems to presume a great deal of familiarity with economics and the financial industry, and it made the book challenging for me to fully comprehend without taking notes and looking up unknown terms myself. But it was well worth the effort.

</comment><comment><USER21> The premise of this article seems to be that since the government funding of scientific research has bore fruits, then it must be justified. The ole saying "a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while" comes to mind. It's worth entertaining the idea that public funding displaces private funding (at a net loss). Burt Rutan makes this argument in his Ted talk on the space industry ([http://www.ted.com/talks/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space...](http://www.ted.com/talks/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space.html)).

In college I came across "The Economic Laws of Scientific Research" by Terence Kealey. It's a great read for anyone interested.

</comment><comment><USER22> The "state" also has access to FAR more assets than any single company ever will. The "state" can very easily define what IS the economy itself unlike a business which is dependent on whatever the economic architecture of the "state" is.

The reason why a lot of shit is invented by the "state" is because they can very easily justify doing whatever they want either via big budgets or big guns. Various "states" have chosen various justification routes in history.

When you look at the "state" as the largest and most powerful business in the land you will realize why they try to hog up "innovation" or at least control it.

</comment><comment><USER23> What about the cooling effect of government spending on private sector innovation. Nobody can compete with the government, since it has unlimited pockets and the ability to legislate, so it would be irrational for any company to try. How do you account for that when you try to measure how much potential the private sector has for major innovations?

<comment><USER24> Do you have any evidence of this "cooling effect?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Rubbish some Entrepreneurs are really just me to copy cats but real ones are innovative take Woz's inspired hardware hacking on the original apple or Clive Sinclair even Alan Sugar with the cpc pcw and the pc 1512 - if only he had paid more attention to quality control he could have had a UK equivalent of Dell.

<comment><USER26> All those microcomputer designs you cited were very important but they depended on decades of military-industrial funding for transistor miniaturization to work.

<comment><USER25> I was thinking in WOZ's case the innovative design of the disk II which was much more old school analog design

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you define "innovation" narrowly as basic research, then sure, funding for that typically comes from DARPA, NSF, and big corporations. Being science, it doesn't even have to work out, let alone have immediate applications, let alone have a way to make money from it, let alone pursue it.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you take someone's money by force, you're a thug, not an entrepreneur.

<comment><USER20> Sure, if that someone owns that money, a priori.

But in real life, wealth isn't simply owned in a vacuum. It's accumulated, possessed, and taxed within the bounds of a system of governance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What about Bell Labs?

Innovation can be done by the private sector. Just avoid going public so that your company can make long term investments without Wall Street pressuring your short-term results.

<comment><USER30> Bell Labs was a part of a government-approved monopoly (AT&T).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Hey, nobody said funding can't come from the government, it's just that private companies and individuals seem to do more with less...

<comment><USER20> It's really dependent on what you're talking about. It takes massive amounts of money to do the really long-term research that lays the foundations for much of our private enterprise. We wouldn't have such a fruitful startup scene for private individuals to attempt to innovate with reasonable low upfront costs if not for decades of development in our computing and communications industries, much of which was financed with long-term state investment. How soon we forget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What's going on at Slate? First the public school article and then this?

</comment><comment><USER33> What a huge insult to people like Steve Jobs.

People who think this way and write these kinds of articles are beyond ignorant. They are dangerously ignorant. They probably lived their entire lives inside a reality distortion field and actually believe this shit.

Here's what I find very interesting: None of these people will ever write an article pointing out how badly government/the state has fucked us over. They go out of their way to attribute visionary status to the government but never bring them to task for what they've done to society.

Examples:

      </comment><comment>

They'll print this: The government created the Internet (false, private enterprise took it from a limited use experiment into what it is today), you should all bow and be thankful.

They'll never say this: The government created the internet with the goal of creating the perfect surveillance tool to actively violate everyone's privacy across the globe by monitoring your every move.

      </comment><comment>

This: We owe the government for creating the GPS system.

Not this: The military created the GPS system to be able to kill people with more efficiency and develop ever more deadly weapons. They did not create it for you to be able to go hiking or find directions to your friends house. In fact, they didn't even envision the possibility of something like an iPhone ever even existing.

      </comment><comment>

This: DARPA funds great projects and helps entrepreneurs.

Not this: DARPA is a military organization throwing money at efforts that will help create a more powerful military and, in turn, kill people with greater efficiency. The ultimately business of the military is to kill people when they are asked to do so and to do it as efficiently as possible. Their business isn't to create technology for us to enjoy while we go fishing.

      </comment><comment>

This: Government built roads, plans cities and infrastructure and we all benefit from this.

Not this: The US government seriously fucked up nearly all urban planning in the US by not focusing the effort on long-term efficient mass transit. They created abominations such as Los Angeles, where it is nearly impossible to exist without a car. Their actions have created untold amounts of environmental pollution, health problems and inefficiencies because we have to live with millions of unnecessary cars and trucks on the road. This failing has cost us for generations and will likely continue to cost us for generations to come.

Through this horrible failure in planning they have enslaved us to our vehicles. Nearly every working person in the US has to own a car. Families spend tens of thousands of dollars purchasing and maintaining them as well as thousands of dollars a year in fuel. Massive numbers of trucks on the road are added for good measure. The environmental pollution is of monumental proportions. The human loss is also hard to measure. With efficient and ubiquitous mass transit people would have the opportunity to make use of their commute time for purposes other than being a control system. Perhaps read a book and learn something.

      </comment><comment>

This: Our government wisely spends billions a year in foreign aid.

Not this: Our government has caused us to lose standing and respect in the world by irresponsibly throwing money around to buy friendships and, often- times, support brutal regimes. Some of these actions have led to increased anger towards the US and have turned the focus of terrorists towards our shores.

      </comment><comment>

This: Governments look after our safety and freedom.

Not this: Governments world wide are responsible for HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people killed in military conflicts. Governments start wars, not people, not the local butcher, baker or teacher. Governments. They have killed hundreds of millions of people with almost no consequence to themselves. When did you last see a president or a sentator take their own life for launching us into a bullshit failed war and killing people for no good reason?

No, it's "we the people" who have to live with the consequences of their actions, it isn't "we the ruling party". They've made a mess out of the world. Period. The mess the UK and the US have made out of the Middle East is hard to understand. Go back and read about how some of those countries came to be.

      </comment><comment>

This: Our government wisely makes economic rules and creates programs that benefit us all.

Not this: The US government is absolutely responsible for the economic collapse of 2008. Their rules created the framework that allowed the real- estate market to devolve and ultimately derail. Without their "regulation" it would have been absolutely impossible for the series of events that ultimately took down the world to have taken place.

Furthermore, as things were devolving our all-knowing, all-seeing, wise and learned government never took a step towards fixing the problem and stopping what was coming.

      </comment><comment>

This: Government social programs are great. We should be thankful.

Not this: Government social programs have created generations of people with no drive to succeed, educate themselves and contribute to society in any meaningful manner. It is, in many ways, economic slavery of the worst possible kind.

      </comment><comment>

This: Governments promote travel, tourism and business at an international level.

Not this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6309618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6309618)

      </comment><comment>

This: The State looks after it's citizens.

Never this: Hitler. The treatment of women in the Arab world. Genocide. The Soviet Union. Cuba. Dictators. Kings. Gay rights. Abortion. Never being able to truly own your home because you owe them taxes. The IRS. NSA.

      </comment><comment>

Don't get me wrong. We need small and limited government. We simply don't need what most have turned into. It is a huge monster that gobbles it all up and, ultimately, does little to make our lives better in the long term.

"With great power comes great responsibility" often derails into "With great power come greater abuses to humanity".

People that champion the idea that we owe almost everything to the State seldom take the time to bring the State to task for what maladies they've inflicted upon the people. If they do it at all it is very rare and lacking intensity and longevity.

They truly think that the State is great. Lots of us see that the emperor has no clothes and that the State needs to have as small a part in our lives as possible. Not sure what it will take for others to see this short of a total collapse, which is in our future if things don't change. Get ready to learn a painful lesson.

<comment><USER33> I find it very interesting when people down-vote something like this without refuting even one of the examples provided. It can only mean that the down- voting is based on blind ideology rather than facts. Every example I provided is factually supported, yet the indoctrinated can't see past their ideology to even consider the fallacy in their arguments.

They applaud the government for creating the GPS system but recoil when someone points out it was created to aid in the military mission of killing people and not for Apple to use on their iPhone. That someone offends their sensibilities and they refuse to look at reality. The State is always perfect in intentions, foresight and results. Anything else is blasphemy.

And that's part of the reason we have the problems we have.

<comment><USER34> could not agree more. thanks for the long post - I actually came back to see whether this particular post got any responses - shared a copy with my friends.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you ever successfully completed a re-write in a company? - <AUTHOR> Since such attempts seem to end in failure more often than not, how did you and your team manage this? What were the key points that made it possible? How long did it take?<p>PS: Lets just say successful means that it replaced the old software without negative impact to users of said software. PPS: Inspired by this other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18554272 <comment><USER2> Yes. We did a phased rewrite of our product, replacing the underlying data structure and networking code, and then working our way up to the UI.

It took 8 months, lots of pain and arguments over architecture, lost some employees, and the result was a solid product of beautiful code that sold no better than the old version.

We abandoned it 2 years later after our new product launched.

tl;dr: even when it succeeds, it's a colossal waste of time.

<comment><USER3> Taking care to do your craft well is never a waste of time.</comment></comment>


U.S. Adds Chinese Firms to Blacklist, Citing Repression of Muslim Minorities - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-adds-chinese-firms-to-blacklist-citing-repression-of-muslim-minorities-11570488642?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> If that's now official American policy then Israel is going bust by Christmas, and Saudi Arabia is invaded by Iran by then.

<comment><USER3> why would israel go bust by xmas? why would s.a. get invaded by then? I don't see the connection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Link[1] to the order, without a paywall, including the list of entities blacklisted.

[1] [https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.g...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-22210.pdf)</comment>


I'm Going Long Right Now - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2008/10/08/im-going-long-right-now/ <comment><USER2> This seems much less organized than a typical Cuban post.

Most disappointingly, he didn't give any supporting thoughts on his most interesting opinion:

"All that said. The stock market can humble me or anyone in a nano second. It could go a lot lower. I DO NOT SEE IT GOING DRAMATICALLY HIGHER. NO CHANCE IT GETS BACK TO 11k anytime soon."

</comment><comment><USER3> 6 months ago when I put 90% of my savings into CDs, people around me told me I was playing it too safe...let me tell you, right now I am one happy person.

<comment><USER4> You should have put it all into the highest yielding (and thus riskiest) money market accounts. The government ended up giving them the same coverage as your CDs (not that you could have known that would happen...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> He recommends CDs but I've always wondered about bonds. Here are the questions I have:

Are there reasonably safe bonds that pay say 6-9%?

What's the probability of a grade B bond defaulting in a given year?

Where does one buy bonds, just through an Etrade account? What do you do if you don't get paid the interest?

</comment><comment><USER6> Two days ago Jim Cramer said "sell everything." I can think of no better buy signal.

<comment><USER7> I remember when Jim Cramer was saying "Bear Stearns is fine. These people who say Bear Stearns is failing are crazy." and then Bear Stearns crashed 10 minutes later.

I wish I could fuck up as bad as Jim Cramer does all the time and still have people take me seriously.

<comment><USER8> You have to remember he's in the entertainment industry, and not the finance industry.

Anyone who trades based off his ideas can go ahead and write me a check.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Why ? Because there are some good companies, in good businesses where I think the dividend is safe, and 6pct , plust hopefully future dividend increases is a good thing._

I hope he wasn't that drunk when he put his money down.

</comment><comment><USER8> We've probably hit an intermediate term capitulative low here.

</comment><comment><USER10> His advice that the average person should not speculate in equities is sound, but he kind of ignores the fact that if you're 100% CDs you're a currency speculator. You're betting on the dollar and the US banking system. There is no true safe haven.

The more history I experience the more sense Harry Browne's old "Permanent Portfolio" makes. He said (if I recall correctly): A third equity indexes, a third bonds (weighted sovereign), a third gold, and make sure a third of the whole mix is not only internationally diversified but actually outside the control of your government. Rebalance once a year.

<comment><USER11> How about substitution of real estate for gold? Real estate might not be en vogue right now - but at least you can grow food on a farm.

<comment><USER10> Owning real estate is more like taking on a part time job than a passive investment.

<comment><USER12> Which is why it's attractive to middle income investors.

Apart from the fact that they can make big bold moves like leverage 10/1, control an asset worth 5X their yearly income, etc.

But a bigger reason is that it gives them a way of relatively easily combining time & money investments without giving up their normal income.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Video SaaS connecting your "locations" to teams via Video, seamlessly - <AUTHOR> http://www.teleportivity.com <comment><AUTHOR> Teleportivity is a live cloud based video platform, allowing you and your "human" team to have a physical video presence across all of your locations, instantly. You can work from anywhere, and teleport into any location as if you were there.

Tech can be used in 2 ways:

1) Fixed Tablet Screens on site (iPads w/ Android coming soon)

2) QR Codes/NFC - Display QR Codes/NFC throughout your locations and users can instantly scan or tap to connect via their phone web browser to your teams seamlessly. You can place QR codes on doors, walls, brochures.... anywhere you want a video call to generate!

\</comment><comment>-- So, steps to get started: 1) Register at teleportivity.com 2) Approval 3) Log in (Google Chrome Browser Only) 4) \--> Download Teleportivity Live from Apple App store (and/or) \--> Generate your custom QR codes instead

5) Start using Teleportivity!

Love to hear feedback and questions.</comment>