The Social Laboratory: Singapore's Surveillance State - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/29/the_social_laboratory_singapore_surveillance_state?page=full <comment><USER2> I'm a native-born Singaporean, served the National Service, and what-nots. I'm also the developer of GOM Chrome extension ([http://getgom.com/sg](http://getgom.com/sg)), a Web-VPN Chrome extension that bypasses MDA (Media authority of Singapore) filters with SPDY-SSL proxies.

I was going to write a long essay to lament how disgusting this article reads from the POV from a Singaporean , but well, I don't believe that the bulk of Singaporeans (who are largely in a blind pursuit of wealth via the rat's race) care enough, nor the government will get any better.

<comment><USER3> Disgusting as in disgustingly incorrect, or as in describing disgusting truths?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Until I read this article, I thought Singapore was a heaven - thanks to likes of Derek Sivers who had been beating drums on this without ever mentioning the its other side: [http://sivers.org/singapore](http://sivers.org/singapore). From now on I would read his stuff with huge grain of salt - or perhaps just stop reading him and wasting my time on these top tier bloggers who are out there to make money out of their readership.

<comment><USER5> You really have to visit the place and live there. Don't take either Sivers' words or this article. That place has won against all odds. They must have done and doing something right. Right?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, they came to power on a platform of communism, switched viciously to totalitarianism while befriending both Burmese junta / drug lords and engineering a stockmarket perfectly designed to hide their ill-gotten gains. Simultaneously they befriended the west and the US in particular and we all know how much the US really cares about the human rights records of its utility-allies in various global regions... [http://thalassiana.blogspot.com/2011/02/list-of-dictators- su...](http://thalassiana.blogspot.com/2011/02/list-of-dictators-supported-by- united.html)

<comment><USER5> Lol! At the same time having highest HDI, highest per capita income (well a massive increase), increase in health and education for the population. If that's what dictatorships can do then I conquer them to be better than democracy.

<comment><USER6> ... and here we have a prime example of the wholly considered view of the typical Singaporean: an obedient slave to blinkered convenience and national back-slapping, underpinned with an unspoken but heavily ingrained and readily observed racism against people from other countries (Bangladesh, India to some extent, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, even mainland China), and no respect or value for fundamental human rights: _There are no such people so hopelessly enslaved as those who believe they are free_ \- LAH!

<comment><USER5> I am from India. You are way to ignorant and prejudiced to see anything.

<comment><USER6> That's a baseless personal accusation.

It only takes a quick look at the color of the skin of people doing various jobs in Singapore to see the obvious culture of racism. Anyone can do it: just go there and see who cleans, serves food, drives taxis and buses, runs the banks, police and the government.

Denying the reality may be your personal choice, but don't shoot the messenger.

<comment><USER7> I had a chat with the maid of a place I stayed in for a month. She was pinay and very happy to be in Singapore, housed, fed and paid around $500 a month with a few hours off on Sundays. The FOB expats of course fumed at the idea, but the alternative for her was earning a fraction of that, stuck in a small village, her life at risk from health issues or aggression.

I haven't talked to construction workers, but I've briefly worked in parts of India with about the same level of earnings (<$70/month). Again, 16h days in the sweltering heat of Singaporean construction sites, and a first world infrastructure, are a HUGE improvement, and so is the much better salary.

It just so happens that the available pool of talent for this legal, structured work overwhelmingly lives in certain countries. But those who do it, seem pretty keen on the work and happy with its results - even if Berkeley residents are outraged that organic cucumbers and probiotic yogurt are not available for the raita. Happy to be proven wrong, by independent third party sources.

<comment><USER6> Let's break this down. You've called drafting migrant workers from third world countries defensible because they are paid more than in third world countries, and you used the euphemism "available pool of talent" to describe base rate unskilled labour.

What happens to these people if they have an accident? I'm willing to bet they don't get invited to a Singaporean hospital and kept on for two years while they recover. What happens if they want to form a labour union? I'm willing to bet their visa is not renewed. What happens if they have an argument with an employer? I'm willing to bet they're sent packing immediately with no opportunity to find alternative work or access social services. These are only basic examples of security that people deserve in equal measure. A society that relies upon the exploitation of others is not a sustainable or just society, even if everyone in town agrees not to mention or think about the reality of the situation or if there are worse places in the world.

<comment><USER7> I misread your earlier position as assuming racism, and forced labour from the Singaporean system, and defended accordingly. What you are now talking about, specifically "people deserve in equal measure", is a completely different subject, which refers to what rights are.

The pre-FDR position (to which I subscribe) considers individual rights to define the right to the pursuit of happiness, which ends up really being about property rights (that is, the right to keep what I have earned by exchanging my time and effort against financial or other compensation). These "rights" aren't magically obtained, they are earned by a population that first gains independence from its masters, and then structures its government not to set up new masters. Two examples are the creation of the USA, and Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.

The "rights" you are arguing for imply a redefinition of "rights" that loosely say "a claim of a base level of happiness to be defined separately" (and then called health services, insurance, food, shelter, etc.). The part of the definition left out is "paid by whom". These "rights" are an infringement of true rights since they naturally imply that these resources will be taken from those who have them in order to be redistributed to those who do not. I moved halfway across the world specifically in protest against such a system (since my voting options were limited anyway). In my experience, those who advocate for FDR Bill of Rights type "rights" are impossible to debate with, because the chasm is philosophical. So I doubt we will ever agree.

From my point of view, even though they are acting in their self interest, the Singaporeans are doing Asia a great favour by sharing their wealth with those who did not take control of their country and set up institutions that protect individual rights, by making labour opportunities available to those outside the island. It is most definitely a "just" system (since foreign workers are protected under Singaporean law against infringements of their individual rights) and seems to be sustainable enough, January riots excepted (and those happened in part because of foreign workers having exactly the same rights, such as roaming around drunk, as the rest of the island).

[Regarding healthcare, I don't know about construction workers, but maids are covered by their employer as part of the package usually. It's very cheap here, since the government hasn't meddled with the insurance and healthcare industries. My health insurance is about a tenth of the US equivalent.]

<comment><USER8> why can't maids and construction workers be paid market wages?

<comment><USER7> They are. The market rate for a maid might be $2k/month locally, and $500/month + food, board and health insurance for a pinay. Singapore is rather unique in that it accepts the existence of global labour market instead of closing its borders (and understands that freeing the local population from back breaking manual labour is generally a good thing, but that's a separate issue). Market rates are much higher in Switzerland because the country has almost no illegal labour (unlike the US, most EU countries, etc.) and issues few visas for manual labour. But I remember, for example, the Geneva police force being mostly French citizen, because they would do the job for 60k CHF/year vs the 90k CHF/year a Swiss would want (I think this is changing as the Swiss realize that foreigners don't really make motivated policemen). [A lot of the complaints about minimum wage/welfare also stem from "let them eat cake" syndrome, in my experience ("what do you mean, a family of 5 in a one bedroom apartment? every child should have his own bedroom when growing up!").]

That's incidentally the crux of the issue with US immigration policy. It used to be that anybody who made it there could stay, and an enormous number of dynasties were started by fresh immigrants (or second generation). As the welfare state was introduced, the borders had to close to avoid an influx of welfare seekers. As other countries got more competitive, there was further political pressure to impede foreign talent from competing with local talent; most recently, you see it in the H1B crisis as American developers suddenly have to contend with large numbers of well educated Chinese, Indian or even European developers willing to work for a lot less. Because the southern border was so hard to make hermetic, illegal immigration for manual labour became the norm and now about 3.5% of the US population (around 11 million) are illegals (and have limited individual rights as a result).

What is so unique about the Singaporean system is that they have managed to set up a system allowing foreigners to come work in the country and retain individual rights and the rule of law whilst being paid a market wage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is some truly frightening stuff. There are large groups of people who relish the idea of a surveillance state in order to eliminate uncertainty in all things. And if privacy has to be sacrificed then so be it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd rather be dead than live in a fishbowl.

<comment><USER10> How much time have you spent in Singapore?

I've been here on and off for most of the last year. It's a beautiful country. You get a close-to-zero crime rate, almost zero violent crimes, impeccably clean transit system (and country in general). Incredibly civilized people, even in the lower socio-economic environs. And they've taken religious and social harmony to a whole new level.

It's a pretty nice fishbowl life as long as you don't want to carry a gun, or do drugs.

<comment><USER11> >It's a pretty nice fishbowl life as long as you don't want to carry a gun, or do drugs.

Or look "kind of Bangladeshi".

Or challenge any kind of social order.

Or get involved in domestic politics at all (as a foreigner).

Fwiw, I've been here longer than you. I enjoy the low crime rate, weather, transit system (excluding the erratic bus arrival times) and the privileges a white face affords me too.

I'm careful of what I say online though, because I know that they are listening closely and are likely to respond accordingly (probably listening even closer than the US monitors its citizens).

>And they've taken religious and social harmony to a whole new level.

A whole new level where the possibility of a race riot in Little India is non- existent?

Or a while new level where race riots in Little India happen, but they manage to put a nice enough spin on it to satisfy you?

<comment><USER2> It is not just you. As a native Singaporean, I had to turn on my VPN to read this article and post this comment. I don't feel free here. It's not a nice feeling, despite the "superficial goodness" foreigners love to talk about.

<comment><USER12> You're overstating : I'm sitting in Holland Village (Singapore) reading HN just fine.

<comment><USER2> See my above post. Most Singaporean's don't care that the big G collects everything about you.

<comment><USER12> With due respect, "I _had_ to turn on my VPN to read this article and post this comment" is overstating. I understand that you may feel like you should only read/post with the aid of a VPN : However, having lived in the US for quite a while before arriving in SG, I think you're overestimating the reality of American's Freedom of Speech (for non-US persons). Both of us are foreign nationals w.r.t. the USA NSA. So they're legally free (under US law, as I understand it) to monitor, store and correlate all our communications (particularly since we're meeting at an end-point in the USA).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Singapore is an oceanic pinch point on its line of longitude. Just as lots of shipping containers go though its port, a lot of undersea optical fibres go though its switching centres. The article doesn't mention it, but logic would dictate that the surveillance would include the submarine fibres?

</comment><comment><USER14> William Gibson wrote a piece on Singapore for Wired in 1993, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty": [http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the article gets (as most Western media does) one thing very wrong: the nature of the relationship between the citizen and their government. What singles out PAP is that throughout its existence, it has offered the citizen exactly what they want and has had overwhelming popular support as a result. It certainly is not the dictatorship that is so often painted abroad (because, how else could you explain the same party getting re-elected over and over again? Surely LKY = Pinochet?). It is definitely not popular because it bribes its citizen with free stuff taken from other citizen ("a paternalistic government ensures people's basic needs -- housing, education, security -- in return for almost reverential deference") - if anything, most of the complaints I hear from Singaporeans complain about the LACK of free stuff.

The distinguishing feature of the Singaporean government is that it is immensely trusted by its citizen and foreign residents alike. This was an open selling point of PAP from its inception, symbolically represented in their white uniforms signifying that this administration would not be corrupted, and is a theme that LKY for example has brought up over and over again in his writings and speeches (and was a major reason for me to move here from Europe, where government officials are often considered, including by the citizenry, as above the law - cf Francois Mitterrand's taxpayer-funded secret family). I think of LKY's efforts to keep PAP clean and respectful of individual rights are much more important and significant than his more publicized efforts to make Singapore an attractive business destination (which after all has also been done elsewhere, from Dubai to the Chinese Special Economic Zones). It is telling that he was also conscious of things like externalities; Friedman- inspired Chile had polluted rivers and crowded roads whilst Singapore introduced market mechanisms to limit the impact of these things on citizen ("wa lao, COE so expensive lor"). The rule of law extends to all residents and applies uniformly; I am always somewhat surprised to see Americans criticize what they perceive as "unfair" working conditions for Filipino maids or Bengali construction workers, who are here on a well structured agreement and protected by Singaporean courts during their legal stay, whilst their economy is propped up by illegal immigrants always looking over his shoulder for the heavy handed "la migra".

This is in stark contrast with many other countries that value individual rights, they will usually assume that government agents need to be restrained from having the means of committing rights infringement and that a small state is the only way to achieve durable rights protection (e.g. Switzerland, which has what is probably the weakest Federal government in the world, or the US prior to FDR or even, philosophically, Hamilton). PAP is powerful because the citizen like what it has to offer and its track record has (so far) matched its sales pitch; as such it has more leeway than most governments (where the electorate prefers to operate with the assumption of "before you let this administration do this, imagine what the administration in 4 elections will do with it").

From a foreigner perspective, it's more helpful to view Singapore as a sort of shopping mall (it is usually compared to a corporation) rather than a nation state. It offers a certain package including the protection of your rights, but has more restrictive laws than is typical for rights-protecting nation states, just like a mall might forbid smoking in its corridors even if the country in which it operates allows it - and these laws were not arbitrarily decided, but made by the elected representatives of the citizenry. The most extraordinary thing to me is that you, the resident or citizen, are treated like a customer, even if the service provider can be a little old fashioned, and businesses don't usually abuse their customers because their customers then leave. When is the last time a government agent smiled to you?

You can enter Singapore and do business in it if you are willing to abide by its rules, and in return you get exactly what you might want as, say, an entrepreneur or talent for hire: a comfortable, very safe environment, low (in my view, "normal") taxes that are spent fairly efficiently, very low amounts of red tape (particularly when it comes to visa policy, although 2014 has been rocky on that front) and durable protection of your property rights regardless of who you are. The fact is, just as currency manipulation is impossible in a country that has to import everything, if the state of affairs were to change, a lot of us would just pack our suitcases, transfer our companies' assets somewhere else, and fly off to better climes. As far as I know, there are no better climes particularly for the (non-American) "everyman" who does not have a huge fortune to buy his way into another nice place. As for the article, its misrepresentation of the nature of the Singaporean government does make me question the accuracy of the rest.

<comment><USER11> >What singles out PAP is that throughout its existence, it has offered the citizen exactly what they want and has had overwhelming popular support as a result.

While it is undoubtedly popular among a certain portion of its citizens, this is not the whole story. PAP is highly UNpopular among a lot of its citizens as well. Elections usually go 60/40 by the popular vote even though at best the opposition wins one or two constituencies. There's a huge number of disaffected people out there.

The US embassy wikileaks memo on the opposition kind of explains why:

[https://wikileaks.org/cable/2004/10/04SINGAPORE3001.html](https://wikileaks.org/cable/2004/10/04SINGAPORE3001.html)

tl;dr:

* They have no real ideology other than "stay in power" (so can and do co-opt some opposition policies like 'increase class sizes' with ease).

* PAP have become absolute masters of divide and conquer. They pull a lot of tricks to prevent the opposition parties from uniting.

* They use legal means to quash the opposition - the most common being suing them into bankruptcy for libel.

* They have a stranglehold on the media with one or two exceptions (e.g. the notoriously crazy "The Real Singapore" website). The opposition has essentially no media presence on TV or in newspapers - only online.

Much as it irritates me the way that people describe the country as being a dictatorship, I find it equally irritating they deem many of the policies designed to cement the PAP's stranglehold on power as "pragmatic and necessary".

No, there's no real reason why Singaporeans couldn't enjoy equal rights similar to those of a Norwegian or an American (or at least, a pre-9/11 American). But, people are so used to the PAP and are kind of incapable of separating their fantastic policies (mercantilism / heavy investment in public infrastructure) from their corrupt ones (maintaining a stranglehold on the press/suing the opposition into oblivion).

<comment><USER7> Isn't government (even in a representative system) supposed to listen to the people? So why complain when they do (by adopting opposition policies that the people want)? [leaving aside the "within the constraints of respecting their rights" part] Why is it bad, per se, that a single party has been in charge without change?

Regarding libel, I'd much rather libel cases, than gag orders (e.g. Australia recently). From the limited amount of time I've looked into the issue, I don't see cases of blantent abuse of libel laws. Of course, the person getting sued and eventually bankrupted will have a major axe to grind (as per the Wikileaks link you link to), but are they a fair third party to take your opinion of the situation from? If 40% of the people disagree with PAP, why don't they help finance the defendant, instead of letting him go bankrupt?

Regarding a press strangehold, today, fewer and fewer people are reading physical papers. Plenty of sites - including Singapore Dissident, linked elsewhere - are available just fine on my home connection (maybe the government classified us as "ang moh" so we get better access?).

I'm not defending PAP for the sake of defending PAP. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile my observations with the criticisms of the country I hear over and over again.

<comment><USER7> As an example of the problem with rumours in the press, look at the candidacy of Herman Cain. The opposition (be that his own, or on the other side) dug up a few women who had a dubious story of sexual harassment (something the US public is sensitive to) and the press gladly ran with it. Cain's campaign was shot down in literally days. From the little I followed, the accusations turned out to be baseless, but it was too late for Cain. In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts. The original article, of course, makes sure to leave just enough words in the right place to paint a very different picture ("look at how they abuse the national defense theme").

<comment><USER11> >In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts.

In Singapore a Herman Cain wouldn't exist in the first place and would probably be sued into oblivion for libel himself. He wouldn't get a radio show either.

I've not yet heard of anybody successfully suing the PAP or anybody within it for libel either.

<comment><USER7> In Singapore Herman Cain would be a PAP MP :P

I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years...

In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely). I guess we'll know in 50 years when archives get declassified.

At the end of the day, we can't know what the opportunity cost of having all the talented politicians join PAP for career reasons is, simply because there is no equivalent anywhere in the world. Other small nations either do not have a strong Federal government (Switzerland), have a strong multi party system (Israel) or are controlled by outside interests (Hong Kong)...

<comment><USER11> >I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al- Yamamah_arms_deal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal)

"In 2010, BAE Systems pled guilty to a United States court, to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in connection with the sales."

The China, the West and Singapore all enforce rulings against corruption sometimes... and sometimes not. I don't think you'll see any of the corrupt Indonesians who stash their money here get prosecuted for instance. They're even better protected by the financial secrecy laws than oligarchs in London are.

>In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely).

Basically because they pay better here. That's good in some ways. In other "yes minister" countries they actually supply a state pension to poor people over the age of 65 instead of forcing them to scrape shit out of a food court toilet in the last pathetic years of their lives.

It's a country of polar opposites. The greatness of the country depends entirely upon your position in its class system, though. Based upon all of your answers, I'd say you're pretty far up, and believe me, I can well understand why you love it here.

<comment><USER7> Well, I'm on an S2 pass (so not that high) but I know people from 2k/month to 30k/month, and they're all pretty happy - in particular, the lower classes appear considerably happier than those in the UK, France, the US, and a half dozen other countries I've lived in. It's irrelevant to the discussion, though.

The idea of money origin mattering to another nation state is a red herring, in this case. If somebody comes to a Swiss private bank with USD 500 million, unless the Swiss government has an agreement with the country from which the individual comes regarding money laundering, it's none of its business how the money was obtained. Refusing "corrupt Indonesian money" via Singapore law forbidding banks to take it, would be Singaporean interference in Indonesian sovereign affairs. Not good. Terrorism is a separate issue - you want to avoid terrorists using your banks, but that's not a problem for the bank, it's a problem for your foreign intelligence service (and in practice, is probably handled by larger agencies like the NSA via collaborative defense agreements).

Regarding food court retired workers, I prefer this system to the one in the West, which encourages recklessness with savings instead of responsibility, and will end spectacularly badly considering demographic trends. A state pension (i.e. redistribution) is also an infringement of the rights of savers to their own savings. But if we go down that path, I'm almost certainly philosophically the opposite of you (by putting the individual's rights before the "greater good") and we'll never agree, even if I understand where you might be coming from.

<comment><USER8> but what exactly is 'this system'? apparently a former president asked to see the books but was denied access? how does anyone know if its all bullshit? maybe 'this system' is already bankrupt? who can tell if they wont show?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is an interesting contrarian view on surveillance, of how singaporeans exploit it to produce a more harmonious society. It seems they are using it well, at least insofar you can trust the reporting, but the very existence of this infrastructure means it could be misused. In the same that an army that is meant to protect against foreign threats could be used to mount a coup, the surveillance meant to protect citizens could be used to enslave them instead. I guess full transparency would be the solution: be very clear about what is monitored, and why.

The article is also insightful in that it goes over surface and vague considerations such as the law and privacy but dives into "the social contract" and culture as a whole. Interestingly, it seems that Singaporeans officials are very aware of these realities and are willing to adapt to the will or "mood" of the population. The articles makes them sound as much more capable than their occidental counterparts. One could probably argue that this is a result of the unique political stability of Singapore which leads to career public servants rather than politician whose sole concern is to get reelected and hold onto a shred of power for as long as they can.

Still, to be taken with a big grain of salt.

</comment><comment><USER16> Singapore's level of command and control seems incredibly obnoxious to me - but living in a Five Eyes country I'm part of a mesh with perhaps as much surveillance on it; the difference is that here in New Zealand it's used to bother half a dozen Communists, arrest a fat German, and suck up to the US government. If I'm going to live in a surveillance state anyway I might as well at least get some of the benefits.

<comment><USER17> Correct me please if I am wrong, but doesn't the Five Eyes agreement prevent members from spying on each other in exchange for better exchange of intelligence? Being in a Five Eyes country would likely reduce the amount of surveillance by other Five Eyes countries, not increase it.

<comment><USER16> > but doesn't the Five Eyes agreement prevent members from spying on each > other in exchange for better exchange of intelligence

Quite the opposite: the Five Eyes countries circumvent their laws against using their espionage agencies for domestic spying by handing the domestic data over to an ally for analysis. So the GCHQ spy on US citizens with the tacit agreement of the NSA and vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Orwell predicted it, and now it's startling to happen. As we speak, the human individual is being deprecated by a new kind of organism. Cells are to us as we are to "it:" expendable little things to be controlled and regulated.

The age of the individual seems to be coming to a close.

<comment><USER19> I think the individual has always struggled against the system. It's just nature.

I'm just surprised anyone would be excited about Singapore. You need to get a permit to give any kind of free speech in the 'free speech area'. Unsurprisingly, they don't grant permits to people who want to speak their mind.

<comment><USER11> >You need to get a permit to give any kind of free speech in the 'free speech area'.

This information is out of date. They changed the law on that some years ago.

The 'free speech area' (Hong Lim Park) is just the only area where you can have a demonstration WITHOUT applying for a permit.

The normal anti-free speech laws applying (i.e. you're not allowed to incite racial hatred in Hong Lim Park either), but you're allowed to go there and demonstrate without a permit (with a few restrictions). IIRC, they held the pink dot rally there.

They had a protest against immigration somewhere up in the north east too. They allowed that to happen (protest application was clearly approved) even though they were protesting government policy and closely allied with the opposition parties.

These protest laws and their application aren't really a whole lot different to what you see in the west these days. You think the West does free speech better? Check out what they did to Occupy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Regarding the passport - I had to hand over my passport in Australia and Portugal to purchsse a SIM card, and I wasn't even allowed to buy one in Brazil, had to get a local to go buy one for me (and show their identification).

<comment><USER20> I have no idea where you bought your SIM here in Portugal, because you definitively don't need to hand over any ID, and you can charge them on any Payshop with cash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something to be aware of - Singapore is _hyper_ aware of the terrorism threat. There is a non-stop video playing in every MRT (rapid transit) station showing a non-descript person blowing up the MRT - including the explosion and sound effects, and asking people to constantly be aware of their surroundings. They have (admittedly somewhat lax) security staff watching for bags at every entrance. They have removed all garbage cans from inside the MRT area.

The country is very, very safe because of the low crime, so, as a result, Terrorism is one of the most significant risks to be watchful for.

<comment><USER11> >There is a non-stop video playing in every MRT (rapid transit) station showing a non-descript person blowing up the MRT - including the explosion and sound effects, and asking people to constantly be aware of their surroundings.

It's not non-stop. I see it maybe 1 time in 7 or 8. Half the time they're playing a trailer for some movie.

This kind of thing is not out of place in London or New York either. Actually, in London the anti-terrorism posters are way more Orwellian.

<comment><USER21> I was going to say this was pretty common in London. Even before the 2005 bombings, due to the IRA threat in the late 20th century. Bins were removed from the underground in the early 90s after the bombing at Victoria station, and from the City after the bombing in Bishopsgate.

Edit: I some words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > the more Singapore has grown, the more Singaporeans fear loss. The > colloquial word kiasu, which stems from a vernacular Chinese word that means > "fear of losing," is a shorthand by which natives concisely convey the sense > of vulnerability that seems coded into their social DNA

Fear as a means to bind a society. This is also used in the US correct? Fear of communism, socialism, terrorist...

<comment><USER11> Kiasu is more like "fear of missing out on a 40% off sale at H&M" than it is fear of communism or terrorists.

<comment><USER23> Kiasu is more like "fear of getting an A- when your peers got an A+". It's a fear of _losing to other people_ , not a fear of loss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Regarding the anti-hate speech laws, France, Canada, and other countries also have some pretty strict laws against the kind of hate speech you can utter.

It's interesting that Americans just assume that you should be legally allowed to spout whatever kind of vile suits your fancy, without any legal implications.

I don't think there is any "absolute" right or wrong way of regulating speech (even Americans have laws against defamation, libel, and shouting"fire" in a crowded theater) - but, it's important to recognize that just because other people approach it differently - it doesn't mean that they are doing it the "wrong" way.

It's useful to look at how American Laws (and attitudes) have changed over the last century or so around homosexuality, same sex marriage, interracial marriage, prohibition, heck, even the right for women to vote - to see how that even in a _single country_ , the "Right" and the "Wrong" can evolve/change in a very short period of time.

<comment><USER24> Those changes you mention have all been in the direction of _increasing_ freedom.

Please refrain from the lazy "fire in a crowded theatre" censorship apologia in future. It doesn't add anything to an argument for censorship.

[http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a- hac...](http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed- apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/)

<comment><USER10> I'm not actually arguing for, or against, censorship. My entire point was to point out that different countries have different laws, each of whom (for the most part) believe they are "right" at the time they have them. And, that when evaluating some other country's laws, don't believe that they are "wrong" just because they are different.

And the "fire in a crowded theater" phrase is a short-hand to refer to the Supreme Court Argument, which forms the foundation of american attitudes towards free speech. It's faster than copy and pasting the entire precedent. I'm sorry if it offended you.

<comment><USER24> Read the link I posted. The quote comes from a 1919 decision against Charles Schenck's criticism of conscription. That is now clearly protected speech, and those writings from Holmes certainly do not form any "foundation of American attitudes towards free speech."

It's a lazy trick to try to appeal to authority, when all you are saying is that you think that "some speech should not be protected."

<comment><USER10> I disagree with your statement that "You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater" does not underly american attitudes towards free speech. It most certainly does - every discussion I've ever heard regarding free speech and its limitations typically references it. Now, whether it _should_ be part of the foundation is another question.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US Life Expectancy Up To 77.9 Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006465.html

<comment><USER2> _Between 2006 and 2007, mortality rates declined significantly for eight of the 15 leading causes of death. Declines were observed for influenza and pneumonia (8.4 percent), homicide (6.5 percent), accidents (5 percent), heart disease (4.7 percent), stroke (4.6 percent), diabetes (3.9 percent), hypertension (2.7 percent), and cancer (1.8 percent)._

This is reported as good news, but in itself it doesn't tell us much. People still have to die of something, and if they're not dying of one thing they're dying of another.

If a plague of crocodiles started eating all the first-born sons then this would show up in the statistics as a huge drop in the cancer mortality rate, but it probably wouldn't be good news.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope that soon we can stop focusing on increasing average life-expectancy (mostly controllable through diet/prevention) and focus on increasing maximum possible life-expectancy.

EDIT: I also think it is remarkable that average life-expectancy has increased despite a large increase in obesity.

<comment><USER4> I wonder how life expectancy by age has changed. This figure most likely applies only at birth.</comment></comment>


'Mob' Attacks Middlebury Prof and Controversial Speaker Charles Murray - <AUTHOR> http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2017/03/03/mob-attacks-middlebury-prof-and-controversial-speaker-charles-murray?utm_content=buffer235c9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> I'm glad this post has no comments (as of now, anyway) because I imagine everyone reading the linked article, coming back to HN, shrugging and saying to themselves "yep, that's super fucked up on the part of those radical leftists", and realizing that there really isn't a whole lot more to it, and thus that there's just not a whole lot here to discuss.

<comment><USER3> It sounds like the status quo for Middlebury.

 _You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy_

Hopefully everyone involved in assaulting a professor will be expelled, but I wouldn't hold out much hope, given the way other campus protesters with similar violent behavior, but implicitly endorsed rhetoric, have been treated with kid gloves in the past.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Part-time/remote data science? - <AUTHOR>

I see a ton of jobs around the web for part-time or remote work as a {language, platform} developer.  I am a graduate student in statistics and newish to data science.  When I look around for part-time or remote work related to data science/R (yes, I know about R-jobs) the pickings are considerably slimmer.  Where do you find your data science gigs, HN? <comment><USER2> Kaggle[1] has data science competitions with cash prizes which any one can enter. They also have a jobs board, which lists a number of jobs that allow remote work[2].

[1] [http://www.kaggle.com/](http://www.kaggle.com/)

[2] [https://www.google.com/search?q=remote&sitesearch=www.kaggle...](https://www.google.com/search?q=remote&sitesearch=www.kaggle.com/jobs/)

</comment><comment><USER3> We're hiring in this area at PredPol right now. PredPol's a company I co- founded that uses past crime data to try and predict where crime is going to happen in the future. Police departments try and use these predictions to get to the right place at the right time and stop crime before it happens.

Email email@example.com if you think you'd be a good fit!

</comment><comment><USER4> I think remote data science jobs are hard to come by, especially for a junior/newer developer.

I would check we work remotely. They have quite a few Database related jobs. [https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)</comment>


Paypal has been terribly broken for 10 days and no one's talking about it - <AUTHOR> http://getclicky.com/blog/120/paypal-has-been-terribly-broken-for-10-days-and-no-ones-talking-about-it <comment><USER2> This is a good example of HN users linking to the original source, not just TechCrunch.Much more information, better written (because it's actually happening to Sean @ Clicky not just being reported about) AND it has important practical updates.

Plus parts of <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=200028> devolved into a conversation about Arrington.

</comment><comment><USER3> I stopped using PayPal a long time ago due to their appalling customer service and the fact they think nothing of screwing sellers even when the seller is clearly in the right.

For example, in several (unrelated) cases I had items which were sent to buyers and had proof of delivery/receipt (sometimes I even received written confirmation from buyers to state items had been received and they were happy).

However whenever these people made a dispute (usually 1day after they expected to receive the goods), PayPal ALWAYS refunded them.

These disputes arose due to issues caused by shipping delays on international sales (and yes, I tell buyers several times during the order process on my sites that international shipping may be subject to minor delay at times especially during peak holiday seasons, so they should be aware of this).

The only thing PayPal is afraid of is your Credit Card company. they frankly do not care about sellers as they know an unhappy seller will stay with them, due to market dominance, whereas an unhappy buyer will kickup a fuss (in worst case using thier card company to claim a chargeback) which will cost them time and money. Also, as they want to increase usage of thier service, they will usually find in favour of the buyer in a dispute as it is the sellers money they give away, not theirs, and hence for them it is a win-win situation (happy buyer, less headache for them) at the seller's expense.

Before worrying about the availability of their service, I would encourage seller to beware of the drawbacks of the service.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ugh tell me about it. Paypal has got some of the worst customer service I've ever witness in my life. I've sent them several emails regarding the use of their services in other countries (the reason being we have some customers who work in Shanghai) and they're responses were either canned(which did not answer my question at all) or treated me liked an idiot and referred me to their documentation. Which by the way is in need of some work as well. They even had the gall to send me an email to rate their customer service!! PayPal FTL.

<comment><USER5> I'm curious, what else exists out there on the 'mainstream' as alternatives to Paypal?

<comment><USER6> Google Checkout maybe? it might be only unidirectional at the moment

<comment><USER7> Going from PayPal to Google Checkout is like trading in your GM for a Ford. Both have the same risks and the potential to royaly screw you in the end.

<comment><USER4> I think at this point in time Authorize.net seems to be the best choice. Feel free to correct me on this though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fix from the TC comments...

"Here is the solution that we used: 1\. install geoip on your server 2\. find the country your customer comes from using geoip 3\. include &country=customer_country in the paypal url your customers are sent to the country combobox will show the customer country as a default."

<comment><USER9> Also if you're using subscriptions do the same but instead of setting country set the lc variable on your form to the country you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Their sandbox really sucks. 404s galore. I decided to develop on their live site which has been more reliable. No my credit card bill is 10 pages and every transaction has a reversal.

The documentation is lacking and inaccurate in many places. They don't consider these bugs so I was unable to provide them feedback.

Their support staff acts like bugs and other issues are not that important. I asked if they could provide a list of PP bugs to the public so that I could mitigate, if possible, and they said no because it would make them look bad.

I'd jump ship if there was another solution that provided the features.

</comment><comment><USER11> I didn't think PayPal could lose anymore credibility, but they've managed to prove me wrong!

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm using them for my latest release, and perhaps 20% of the time the servers 404 after a long delay:

"We are unable to complete your request at this time. Please click Retry or try again later. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Message 3004"

Completely unacceptable, we're shopping around for alternatives. Unfortunately, I'm in NZ and Google Checkout isn't released here yet.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've had really good luck with paypal personally. This current issue is a pretty big deal, but I find it tough to beleive he found no satisfaction with the on-phone support. Maybe they have gone downhill lately.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.paypalsucks.com>

A MUST read for anyone using PayPal, even if you have never had a problem.</comment>


Reports raise video privacy concerns for Amazon-owned Ring - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/10/amazon-ring-privacy-concerns/ <comment><USER2> Anyone should pretty much assume that AI means poorly paid humans being masqueraded as computers similar to the midget in the mechanical turk. There are just too many outliers in the real world for AI to work in all cases and start ups will be using humans to augment, train or just pretend to be algorithms for some time to come.</comment>


Litecoin has lost half its value since the creator sold all of his stake - <AUTHOR> http://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/litecoin-price-loses-half-its-value-since-creator-charlie-lee-sold-stake-2018-1-1013127468 <comment><USER2> what this article fails to mention is that, while litecoin's price has halved since charlie lee sold all of his stake, so has bitcoin. the entire market has corrected, at its peak the crypto market cap was at ~$850 billion, right now its at ~$500 billion

<comment><USER3> By "corrected" surely you mean "entered the dump stage of a pump-and-dump scheme".

That's essentially the underlying story of litecoin and the common thread of all so called cryptocurrencies.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, an unhackable protocol that is decentralized and solves the double spend problem has no value to society whatsoever.

<comment><USER5> > an unhackable* protocol

* unhackable except for the 51% attack. Decentralized does not mean invulnerable.

> ...solves the double spend problem has no value to society

The value of a cryptocoin reflects people's belief in the ROI of holding on to it, rather than how "good" to society it can be.

<comment><USER6> Like you I believe it's a pump and dump. I still believe we're discovering valuable technology. This is like the first motor-drawn-carriage that went at nimble walking speed. It led to proper cars about 20 years later.

I think we'll see a lot of iterations and people losing their money in the next few years, until we've figured out how to make the currency slightly inflationary. Which is what is needed to actually make it a currency that people use. Pretty much every government knows that deflation is bad for spending, because hoarding means making money. Too much inflation and people don't want to save for big purchases because they're losing too much. Slight inflation (e.g. 1%) is the golden middle.

We could maybe have an algorithm that achieves this somehow by regulating the crypto supply to make it grow at a rate of 1% (+ the losses in crypto going out of circulation via people losing their private keys).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Judging by the chart, the writer probably had this ready to go for awhile and set an alarm for _the precise moment_ that a random price fluctuation finally put it below the 50% mark.

That, and of course the price is going down in general, but that's because it's no longer December 2017, doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the creator's sellout.

<comment><USER8> Then again, going on CNBC and touting your coin as the next big thing and then selling your stake a few days later... there's a reason we've banned that kind of behavior in securities markets for decades.</comment></comment>


How to join a startup (by Bijan Sabet) - <AUTHOR> http://bijansabet.com/post/335646309/how-to-join-a-startup

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting article written from the perspective of a VC. For anyone out there who is thinking of joining a startup, my suggestion is that you go in with open eyes, not open heart. If you are going to be hired as employee, make sure you are treated as an employee and are compensated accordingly. The test is simple. Are you going to be paid at market value? If you are, no problem. It would be a great learning experience and you are not taking any financial risk (opportunity risk, may be). But if you are asked to cut back (or even forgo) on salaries, then you are a co-Founder no matter how long the startup has been around, how long the Founder has been working on his/her idea and who is the VC's behind the scene. Make sure you are rewarded as such (i.e., lots of Founder stock, not stock options). Most importantly, you need to learn the difference between "liking" someone and "respecting" someone. As an entrepreneur, you don't need to "like" someone to have a business relationship with them. It is not an ethical violation to pretend to like. You just cannot pretend to "respect".</comment>


How stress works in the human body, to make or break us - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-stress-works-in-the-human-body-to-make-or-break-us <comment><USER2> There is some insane things the body can do with stress depending on how you use it. Long story short: I had always been overweight as a child and teenager. Struggled to lose weight. If I did, it was a roller coaster ride. I'd lose 5 or 10 pounds and looking at a donut or something seemed to put it right back.

Anyways, my girlfriend and I had broken up at the time, and I was upset about it, but used the opportunity to get away from all influences of food from others. I was living alone and never went out, and within 3 months of pretty much resorting to a chicken breast a day with some salad as well as working out (No, I never went to the gym), I was able to lose about 30 pounds.

By working out, I mean I forced myself to ride my bike to work everyday at 2.5 - 3 miles each way.

Most people would probably say: You're not eating enough, you need to eat more! That advice is what probably got me fat in the first place. Listening to what your body wants and eating when you are hungry -- eating so that you can function, not living to eat, is something that certainly changed in my life and perspective. The body lets you know exactly what it needs. It's an evolutionary tool that has been designed to burn fat and it will do its job and do it more efficiently when you give it the proper nutrition to do so.

I think between the stress of not having that person who had been my best friend for so long, the eating, and the exercising, I was able to lose some weight.

On the other hand, I have also seen people break up with boyfriends or girlfriends and gain 30 pounds. It is all in how you choose to manage the energy of that stress.</comment>


PuTTY 0.69 has been released - <AUTHOR> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/releases/0.69.html <comment><USER2> Here are the changes from the changelog, looks like it's just bug fixes:

* Security fix: the Windows PuTTY binaries should no longer be vulnerable to hijacking by specially named DLLs in the same directory, even the names we missed when we thought we'd fixed this in 0.68. See vuln-indirect-dll-hijack-2.

* Windows PuTTY should work with MIT Kerberos again, after our DLL hijacking defences broke it.

* Jump lists should now appear again on the PuTTY shortcut in the Windows Start Menu.

* You can now explicitly configure SSH terminal mode settings not to be sent to the server, if your server objects to them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone else use the Bitvise SSH Client[0]? I have used it in place of PuTTY for a long time (I don't recall how I found out about it originally) as it seems much more feature-rich but PuTTY is still dominant on Windows, from what I have seen.

[0] [https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client](https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client)

<comment><USER4> >> _[...] but PuTTY is still dominant on Windows, from what I have seen._

I think that's because the Bitvise SSH client wasn't freely available until last year[1], whereas PuTTY has been freely available since the dot-com days[2]. Absolutely nothing wrong with this, but the 15+ year lead as a freely available client is probably the main contributing factor for PuTTY's dominance on Windows. Habits are hard to change sometimes.

[1] [https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client-version- history-6](https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client-version-history-6)

[2] [http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/changes.ht...](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/changes.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> About 18 years of development and only at version 0.69, I love it. Almost no commercial software company would number their software so.

I love open-source software's simple websites, dorky logos, and straightforward --- even self-deprecating --- self-descriptions. And I'm someone whose background is in graphic design, communication, etc.

It's just a refreshing contrast to the bloat and bluster of corporate projects. I would trust most open-source projects' version 0.69 over most commercial software's version 6.9.

</comment><comment><USER6> BLAH. I was really hoping for SSH CA support. I want that on windows now already. Yes OpenSSH (with CA support) can run on windows 10 under the linux subsystem, but it won't yet support X11 forwarding, and PuTTY does. I need X11 support and CA support, and I haven't found anything under windows that does that.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have never understood why the SSH client that is considered standard on Windows must be a GUI program. Even though it's Windows, this just rubs me the wrong way. Somehow, even running xterm using Xming feels more natural. (The Cygwin ssh is, of course, a command-line executable, as it should.)

<comment><USER2> Because cmd.exe sucked until at least Windows 10.

<comment><USER8> Technically, you mean conhost.exe, not cmd.exe, but yes. cmd.exe is analogous to /bin/sh, not xterm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been using Bash on Ubuntu on Windows for the last 10 months instead of PuTTY. Pretty satisfied, it make operation on only linux easier.

</comment><comment><USER10> In a few years when the windows linux subsystem has more traction I expect putty will become mainly unnecessary.

<comment><USER11> Agree. But it was a program that is far ahead of its time. Thank you Putty devs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I stopped using windows in 1991

</comment><comment><USER12> Windows is a disease</comment>


Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances? - <AUTHOR> I am trying to start recording the day-to-day flow of my money as part of a larger goal of implementing some in my life.
I have done some research and some self-hosted software solutions that interest me include [Firefly III], [Transity], [Ledger]. Maybe I'll write my own personal finance record keeping software.
Since this will be the first time keeping track of my own finances, I'd like to hear what has worked for others members of the Hacker News community.
[Firefly III]: https://firefly-iii.org/ [Transity]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17242136 [Ledger]: https://www.ledger-cli.org/ <comment><USER2> Here's a practical approach that have been working well for our family.

Forget about recording your transactions, it is way too tedious.

The solution: Use 'jars' for budgeting. Our jars are bank accounts.

First we have a main bank account where money comes in. Set all recurring bills (eg. rent, utilities, phone) to direct debit from this account. Let's call this income account. Leave the debit card at home, don't use it.

Then set an estimate of how much you be spend every week on groceries, transportation, etc. See this as your pocket money.

Then set up another bank account, set an automatic weekly transfer from the income account to this pocket money account. The amount is what you estimated previously. Everything in this account is for you to spend. If you spend less the week before, then you can spend it this week... or not. But you should not spend more than what it is there.

Adjust the automatic transfer amount if needed.

Now, if you want to save... it is the same strategy. Set up a saving target, open a savings account and do automatic periodic transfer from the income account.

Try it... it requires very little effort, makes you more conscious on how much you spend and on what and after a while you will be surprised with how much you're saving.

<comment><USER3> Sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but are there any particular banks/accounts you use for this method? I would want it to be very easy to open accounts online with no hassle if I were to use this approach.

<comment><USER2> I use several banks. Here in the UK, I use Starling & Monzo. There are also international providers such as Skrill and Transferwise. Check what is available to you. Do not be discouraged by nominal account fee. You will save much more money than bank account fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have tried many things apps/excel/text file and after some time I give up. The current solution I use for more than one year and I am happy. Works while travelling (currency support) but it needs internet.

To solve personal finance control I made myself a bot (on telegram). Works on anything web/desktop/mobile and that is just text. I think about it as my accountant.

I send him

>Beer 4 ( meaning I spent 4 on beer)

>wine 6 EUR ( meaning I spent 6 EUR on wine)

If I want to group things in a category:

>Beer is drinks

>wine is drinks

Don't forget to first set the expense currency.

>config ExpenseCurrency USD - (this will be the default expense currency if you don't specify otherwhise)

If you want to export just write:

> export expense

You will receive an url that can be imported(as text) in excel and can be refreshed. I use excel if I want explore/visualize.

I get a reminder/summary every day just to make sure I don't forget.

I have more commands [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x7iYpbXJHGyQQ4CxA1W6LgLr...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x7iYpbXJHGyQQ4CxA1W6LgLr_D8Z7TabxE5RVFJW1gE/edit) And more that I have not documented. Let me know if you need something.

It does not uses language understanding, behind it has a compiler so there is NO misunderstanding

If you try it let me know or contact [https://twitter.com/cosmaioan](https://twitter.com/cosmaioan)

<comment><USER5> My approach is similar. I keep plain text notes on my phone where each line is something like "16 haircut" or "12o" (eating out). I have a Node script that I currently run manually, but the problem is that I only run it every couple of months... Using a bot keep track of things is a great idea!

Currently I group everything by month, but using a bot would also allow that to be more granular.

One thing I try to focus on is simplicity of the categories. Instead of spending £5 on toiletries and £3 on fruit I just have on "everyday items" category that I use for everything that I buy at the supermarket. So after every purchase I make I only spend about 5s writing it down, rather than trying to do any splitting calculations in my head.

Here are the result: [http://www.mattzeunert.com/money.html](http://www.mattzeunert.com/money.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Start with double-entry accounting on paper, until you don't learn anything new going through the process. Then you'll be in a position to pick an automation system that works with your process.

You'll need two notebooks:

Start with a transaction journal, where you record your purchases -- amount, how you paid, what you bought, etc. For most things, this is as simple as taping the receipt in.

Your account book has one page per account (method of payment or expense category). Once a week, subtotal all the new transactions by account. Make sure the subtotals balance (sum(expenses) = sum(payments)), and add a line to the relevant page in your account book -- Dates of transactions covered (to crossreference with the journal), subtotal amount, running total.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been using YNAB (You Need A Budget) for four years now and it has made a big difference in how much we're saving. I used spreadsheets or other DIY solutions in the past, but they aren't very multi-user friendly (wife and I share a family budget) and didn't make me think of savings in the same way.

Here's a good review: [https://thewirecutter.com/money/best-budgeting-apps- and-tool...](https://thewirecutter.com/money/best-budgeting-apps-and-tools/)

<comment><USER8> The review provides affiliated links to the product...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a google sheet with an attached form. I then use simple queries to retrieve the data. For example, I have a sheet that displays the expenses per category (food, holidays, etc.) for the current month and also shows me the % of my income I have spent.

I added a few lines of Javascript which are run on what is probably a rough equivalent of a cronjob. They just check if it's the first of the month and if so append my current, recurring, monthly expenses to the form.

This is a simple and pragmatic approach where I can leverage the data analysis tools of google sheets (charts and stuff), access and add my data from everywhere and not have to implement anything myself.

I also use that to track what I buy for me and my GF so that we can eventually reimburse each other for shared purchases (mainly food). We could also get a shared account but so far it's been working really well.

If I am interested in my overall net worth I just log into my bank account and check out how much money I have and what my ETFs are doing.

The form is pretty simple: Amount, category, name, comment and then choose if it's both (me and my GF), I O (see comment for whom I am owing money).

</comment><comment><USER10> Default notes app:

      22/06
      -0.2 morning
      -3 Jack
      +2 John tires
      -1.5 ?

Then I parse it (perl) to standard accounting software, guessing analytics from these comments. No specialized app worked conveniently enough for me than just typing the event on new line.

<comment><USER11> mind to share the setup?

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't mind, but it is only parsed into [[date, amount, comment]+] and then processed by 1c enterprise integrated into our company (we are russians). All the analytics magic/ui happens there, but I'm not sure if it is extractable or disclosable, since it's mostly a data-driven process specific to us. Pointing to 1c distribution also counts as warez, so...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't really bother because when I've tried in the past it's just been really tedious.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm using YNAB but probably going to move to my own spreadsheet at some point because their move from product to subscription service provides no extra value - they don't even support UK banks for auto-import which is the only thing they've added.

</comment><comment><USER14> I had too many transactions to annotate without going insane. Currently:

\- chrome headless downloads CSV with transactions from every bank account and every card

\- everything's appended to an airtable database

\- script sorts transactions into categories (specific: "local joe" is groceries and generic: " _restaurant_ " is eating out)

\- anything not annotated can be done manually later

\- another script generated graph using Vega [https://vega.github.io/vega/](https://vega.github.io/vega/)

It took time to set up, but I'd really rather script this than manually tag every $ spent. Also there's no way I'm giving a third party my bank credentials. Common bank APIs can't come soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER15> For a few months, I tracked checking balance in a spreadsheet and did my best to extrapolate out payments and paychecks for a month. The idea was to (1) have checking live paycheck to paycheck, and put the rest in investments (2) figure out what the actual household monthly budget is and (3) simulate "affordable" mortgage payments based on income.

In practice, I managed to retime some of the monthly payments, lowering the variance of the account balance substantially, which created another $5-10k to invest. I also trimmed about $1k from the monthly budget with no lifestyle changes.

For online services, I recommend personal capital's free tier. It is what Mint should have become.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was in the same position last year, here's what I did:

\- First month: Downloaded YNAB; every day or two, I logged into my bank accounts and check all transactions, added transactions to YNAB (creating budget categories as necessary). By the end of the month, I had a budget (a very bad budget).

\- Second month: Review all expenses of previous month and create upper bounds for budget categories (groceries, gas, going out money, books, etc.), removing "unnecessary" expenses (mostly monthly subscriptions). Wrote scrapper for fetching bank transactions.

\- Third month: Review last month budget and adjust accordantly.

And that's it. Just keep it simple.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use ledger, along with a couple scripts I've wired up (if I hit Win-Shift-B I get a desktop notification with my current balances).

I actually appreciate the manual nature of it -- knowing I'll have to go to the ledger and enter something after making a purchase has cut down on stupid purchases.

The only thing I'm missing is a nice GUI summary with some pie charts. There's a couple on GitHub but they either aren't up to date or I can't get them to work like I expect. But I haven't looked too hard -- would appreciate a pointer if there is one.

</comment><comment><USER18> An application that:

1) Aggregates transactions from my checking accounts and credit cards

2) Summarizes them into daily net cash inflow or outflow broken down by institution and account

3) Creates an all-day event in a private calendar in my google calendar account where for each day:

The event name is the net inflow or outflow (event color is red or green depending on net in floe or outflow.

The event body is text that shows institutions, accounts with their balances nested underneath, and transactions nested underneath the accounts.

</comment><comment><USER19> I use a basic LibreOffice spreadsheet. There's a fair bit of manual inputting of the data but the advantages are that it takes care of all sorts of cases, from bank to cash transactions.

Importing bank transactions is easy. Regarding cash, one needs to keep a regular track - I do this by tracking them on my phone as a note or something and about once a week I'll enter in all the data into the spreadsheet.

I've been doing it for 8 years now and it's been amazing to see where the money goes and where we can cut down :)

</comment><comment><USER20> I use ledger for my business and home accounts.

For the business it's OK as there are only a couple of transactions each month, nearly all my business is pushed through Avangate/2Checkout so there is just one invoice a month.

For my personal accounts it's rather unwieldy, I'm probably going to go switch to something desktop based.

I won't use a SaaS product for either, I've had my fingers burn't once on that already.

</comment><comment><USER21> I started using gnucash again recently after a 10 year break. It has made some progress around ease of use and there is an android version of it now too. Still tedious though. I played with ledger and found it even more tedious.

Fava sure looks pretty, but I haven't tried it:

[https://beancount.github.io/fava/](https://beancount.github.io/fava/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I have been using buxfer.com so far. What I really like about it is that I need to manually enter only cash transactions. I can link my bank accounts and it will automatically record all credit card & bank transactions - I only need to categorize them. However of late they have been unresponsive to support requests. I wonder if there is even anyone working on the product.

</comment><comment><USER23> I keep it easy by using mint (also good to track your net worth), set different alerts on each category. I have automatic transfers to savings accounts (investments, IRA, HSA, safety net...).

For sharing expenses with my other half, we are using Vermo for large items (rent...), we're not tracking minor things. We discussed about a shared credit card for common expenses (groceries...).

</comment><comment><USER24> I use excel. My goal is to find out my monthly costs of living and how much I spend on extras like holidays and repairs.

Recently I have greatly simplified the process. It helps to have a separate contactless card (eg Revolut), everything spent there goes into the monthly living costs column, I don't care about the details.

</comment><comment><USER25> Spendee + Keep & always backing them up half-yearly. I would love to create something with markdown & [https://github.com/remotestorage/remotestorage.js](https://github.com/remotestorage/remotestorage.js) for storing user data.

</comment><comment><USER26> There's simple Android app called Expenses (red circle, dollar bills with a yellow graph arrow). It's fairly fleshed out and allows for exporting to CSV. Been using it almost a year. I plan on analyzing my data from it once I have more.

</comment><comment><USER27> I just use my credit card for all my purchases and then the bank already breaks it down by category. I'm not sure why I'd need a separate app and I don't want to give banking credentials to third-parties if I don't have to.

</comment><comment><USER28> One bank account, one credit card.

Record all income and expenses on iOS Spendee app. Set monthly, weekly recurrent payments. It has been almost two years and has been working good so far.

</comment><comment><USER29> After years of trying to find something that works for me I've finally found a stack that works. The big issue I had was that I wanted something that could import my bank statements. I found one of this issues here was that the bank transactions had no id's so I couldn't tag the duplicates. Then I found most banks allow you to export to ofx. This has ids and it has the balance at the end of the statement. So I could auto import and de-duplicate. I started to write my own thing but then I remembered something my boss taught me "Only write software as a last resort". Basically meaning most problems are already solved only write custom software if its really needed. So I looked around and found ledger autosync (I love this tool). Then I use hledger for my actual accounting. I rely heavily on automated transactions and virtual accounts to do an envelop style budget. But its been amazing. I've been thinking about documenting the work flow. If you are interested ask on this comment and I'll put something together.

Ledger likes are not for everyone. I'd actually say they not for most people, but I truly love the simplicity and flexibility. But I'd be using a text based email client if it wasn't for everyone sending html emails, so I'm a bit weird. That said having plain text files that you can manipulate is amazing. I don't know why but with Gnu-cash I was always unsure about using import tools and trashing my db. But with hledger I can try something and just roll back in mercurial if I don't like it. I'm sure I could have made copies of my Gnu-Cash files but I just feel more in control of hledger. Also hledger allows for things like automated transaction that simplify envelope budgeting.

With auto sync and hledger, I've gone from my budget taking 1 - 2 hours a week to 10 - 20mins. No more hunting for that one typo that meant my budget didn't balance with my bank balance.

Hledger has also been fantastic as far as help. I've jumped on IRC a few times for help and bug reports. The lead dev has been amazing. Fixing bugs the same day and offering help on using hledger.

There are some great resources here [https://plaintextaccounting.org/](https://plaintextaccounting.org/)

Auto sync is here [https://github.com/egh/ledger- autosync](https://github.com/egh/ledger-autosync) Hledger is here [http://hledger.org/](http://hledger.org/) How to do envelope budgeting with ledger likes [https://frdmtoplay.com/envelope-budgeting-with- ledger/](https://frdmtoplay.com/envelope-budgeting-with-ledger/)

<comment><USER14> > Then I found most banks allow you to export to ofx. This has ids and it has > the balance at the end of the statement.

Watch out with that. Unless you verify the output format yourself for a few months, don't trust the exported ofx files. I haven't seen one bug-free yet, but I've found: wrong values if memo contains numbers, bad date format (minutes used for month), missing IDs, duplicated IDs, IDs generated with every download, dates changing after processing, and some others.

I processed ofx files from a few banks and in the end reverted to CSVs. They're less broken...

<comment><USER29> Thanks for the warning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> GNU cash :)

[https://gnucash.org/](https://gnucash.org/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I total up my accounts every month, put it in a spreadsheet.

</comment><comment><USER32> I use Ledger encrypted with GPG commiting in my Github repo.

<comment><USER29> Why not just use a private repo?

<comment><USER33> If it is because it costs money, then bitbucket is your friend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> keep it simple. use mint.

<comment><USER35> This is basically offloading the record keeping to the bank. However, in an environment where the cash transaction is king, using this method has little value.

<comment><USER29> People still use cash? I don't think I've made a cash purchase in the last 5 years.

<comment><USER35> I live in Germany and cash is still the preferred here. My small town near Cologne only started to adopt credit card about 6 years ago. When we arrive, the only shop that would take credit card was the petrol stations franchises.

<comment><USER29> Wow. Here in New Zealand we switched over to EFTPOS ( debit cards ) around 20 years ago. I was still in school when cash was becoming rare. Mid 30s now so cash seems odd to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> something like expensify?</comment>


SaaS vs. Open Core: Which Business Model Is Best? - <AUTHOR> https://gravitational.com/blog/open-core-vs-saas-business-model/ <comment><AUTHOR> There is a google sheet which has the data I used for this post [0].

I had also looked at companies like Slack and Zoom which target lower average deal sizes and it was quite remarkable how much better their metrics were. But didn't feel like it was apples to apples. That data is the spreadsheet though.

[0] [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BV1Kk542KHultHOB8Lkz...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BV1Kk542KHultHOB8LkzAotv1L5PvCb87_mrNMO43JI/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><USER2> This is great. How did you collect this? I assume we need to tack on an extra 3 0s to each of the figures there?

<comment><USER3> I agree, these numbers seem low.

<comment><USER4> It's a convention. SEC filings typically list financial data in 000's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We buy support. I dislike Open Core as it tends to be unclear where features go in the future, and the pricing is usually insane. At my workplace we need to be on-prem so SaaS is out. We often pay for support we don't really need, in order to fund open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think in the article SaaS is used to refer to proprietary SaaS companies.

In my opinion these are two different dimensions. You have the delivery method: SaaS vs. self-managed/on-premises. And you have the license of the code: proprietary vs. open-core (which can be fully open source, open-core, or a non-compete license like the one MongoDB and CockroachDB switched to).

At GitLab we have an open-core license and offer the product both as SaaS and self-managed, so we do both things in the title. The opposite would be companies offering only proprietary software that you run yourself, like Sketch.

Another dimension would be billing, people frequently mention SaaS as an example of subscription billing. At Gitlab we also bill for our self-managed software on a subscription basis instead of a big license fee upfront and yearly maintenance.

<comment><AUTHOR> "I think in the article SaaS is used to refer to proprietary SaaS companies."

That's true and covered in a previous post [0]. I also recently saw this tweet from @asynchio that also agrees there are different dimensions [1] and will be covering that further.

[0] [https://gravitational.com/blog/kubernetes_networking_on_bare...](https://gravitational.com/blog/kubernetes_networking_on_bare_metal/)

[1] [https://twitter.com/asynchio/status/1136139175437062146](https://twitter.com/asynchio/status/1136139175437062146)

<comment><USER6> Cool, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > In the second post, we discussed how there is actually quite a bit of > overlap between SaaS and Open Core and to draw a distinction, we would > assume the Open Core software is primarily being delivered on-premises for > comparison purposes.

Hmm, that might be convenient for your analysis, but it seems an unsafe assumption and artificial categorization to me. I think an increasing number of "open core" efforts, possibly most of them, are trying to monetize the non- open-source portions via SaaS. In fact, as we saw in the Amazon/ElasticSearch fight, one of the main motivations for not using a FLOSS license for some or all of your software is to prevent SaaS competitors from using the software you are producing.

I tried to look at your list of companies analyzed categorized "Open Core" to see how many of them offer a SaaS, but I realized that for these companies I was unfamiliar with it was hard to figure that out quickly from their web pages. Let alone then figure out if they were _primarily_ delivering as SaaS if they offered an on-premises option (as even Github does). But that would seem to be neccessary to validate your assumptions.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been working on an open source search engine ([https://github.com/typesense/typesense](https://github.com/typesense/typesense)) and this exact deliberation has been on my mind.

Ideally, one could offer both on-premise and hosted versions (like Gitlab), but that's really tricky and needs a lot of resources to pull off successfully.

</comment><comment><USER9> This question (or the basis of the analysis) really doesn't make a ton of sense. The overriding deciding factor is really: who is the buyer and how do they want to buy. An open-core model for a strictly non-technical audience is a lot worse off than SaaS. On the other hand, if you have customers with security concerns SaaS may be off the table (still) for many of them.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm really curious how bootstrapping as opposed to VC money would affect this comparison. Not really much in the way of data I imagine though... I suppose it's hard to compare too. Big piece of a small pie vs small piece of a big pie kind of issues abound. Although HN has a very reasonable slant towards VC backed startups, I'm _much_ more interested in bootstrapped startups.

<comment><USER11> I have some experience with both models. Bootstrapping is hard mostly because of sales, not R&D. I'd say a healthy model these days is to bootstrap the tech before you start investing in sales as much as you can. The danger with that is poor product market fit: most techies are not great at doing sales and marketing and you may end up building what you'd want instead of what your customers actually want.

For a no-tech company, getting techies to execute your vision is hard and expensive and generally impossible without funding or a very solid co-founder. You are basically talking about outsourcing an mvp to cheap consultants that aren't that great. The result is throwaway code. If you can sell that; great and you can then start fixing it. If not, that's a problem.

A few of the open core companies pre-date their VC rounds. I know one of the Elastic co-founders from before he got involved with that. The project was several years old by the time they incorporated and got proper funding. They were bootstrapping using consulting and support type stuff (this is how I met him). After getting organized, they went from a small group of contributors to closing several big rounds and hundreds of staff in a short time. Also from there to IPO was quite fast. I'd say this was a good example of bootstrapping followed by VC capital to grow followed by what looks like a successful IPO: they are trading at 82$ after an initial price of 70$, they have revenue, and growth, and what looks like a reasonable valuation to my (not an expert) eyes.

IMHO there's nothing wrong with VC capital provided you do it for the right reasons and on your own terms and not as a shotgun wedding. In my current company, we got close to a series A a couple of times but chose not to proceed for the reason of wanting to stay in control of our company and protecting the interests of our early investors. The flip side is that this has slowed down our pace and limited our ability to grow.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for that! I seem to remember Gitlab also saying that they tried bootstrapping before accepting VC funds and had a hard time at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't there survivorship bias by looking at notable successful IPOs?

</comment><comment><USER13> Wrong question as usually both are combined

Edit: as already in other posts highlighted they are two different dimensions

</comment><comment><USER14> off topic but Neo4j recently executed an open source for open core bait and switch. thoughts on that?

</comment><comment><USER15> It's a Jeopardy! clue.

[buzzer]

What is .. Software as a Service?</comment>


Yes, Python Is Slow, and I Don't Care - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/yes-python-is-slow-and-i-dont-care-13763980b5a1 <comment><USER3> >It's more important to get stuff done than to make it go fast.

Hmpth. Why must I choose? Python is very poorly - even perversely - <USER2> from a performance perspective. I suspect the only reason we use it is because it was an early offering amongst "human-factors-oriented languages", and it now has the momentum. But there's no intrinsic conflict - there exist languages now that are arguably intrinsically better along every conceivable metric.

</comment><comment><USER4> There seems to be an unstated assumption that dynamic types cause slower code, but aid productivity. But I find static types greatly help me reason about a program, and when doing python, I resort to extensive documentation of function arguments and return values, as a poor substitute for static types.

<comment><USER5> Yea seriously. I'm kind of surprised to see this here: outside of places that are absolutely performance-critical, my complaint and most of the complaints about Python that I hear from people who know what they're talking about is that doing a medium to large project in it is a lot more difficult from the perspective of code readability. This gets multiplied by a million if you're working with engineers who aren't super great, or who are overall great but have a couple bad habits. I'm currently in a Python codebase with ~4 engineers on it, and even with this relatively small team Python is permissive enough to let them do some pretty horrifying things. Dealing with these choices usually cost us far more eng time than the two minutes spent to design something well would have cost them.

I like the language overall, in part because it allows mediocre engineers to become quickly productive and you can't always hire 100% excellent engineers. But this main downside is in fact a downside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Python is actually pretty fast for some things. The string and I/O operations are all written in decently fast C, so some types of problems are actually a good fit for python, speed wise. It won't beat a well written java programming, but you can come a long way with very little code.

Pointless things like this comes to mind: [https://github.com/juditacs/wordcount/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/juditacs/wordcount/blob/master/README.md)

Two persons in the #guile irc channel tried hard to make a guile version run faster than the python3 version, and after a long time got it on par with it, and guile2.2 is usually about 3-5x faster than python in my completely unscientific benchmarks.

</comment><comment><USER7> Go is just as fast, easy, and clean to write and is leagues faster.

</comment><comment><USER8> a discussion, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14024486](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14024486)

</comment><comment><USER9> your users care</comment>


Modified Primigenus' Cleaner Hacker News, Easier to Read - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/msarchet/Cleaner-Hacker-News I attempted to improve the readability of the style. <comment><AUTHOR> I really like what Primigenus did with his styles, but I found it hard to read on smaller screens and didn't like it being centered. I made some style adjustments and wanted to provide an opportunity for other people to use it. Screen shot in the readme in my fork

</comment><comment><USER2> I like this, I don't love it, but I definitely like it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Perspective App: Exploring, Creating, and Sharing Audiovisual Stories - <AUTHOR> http://www.pixxa.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> The app (and platform) was recently featured by Horace Dedidu (Asymco) in his 5by5 podcast:

[http://www.asymco.com/2012/07/18/5by5-the-critical- path-46-t...](http://www.asymco.com/2012/07/18/5by5-the-critical-path-46-the- next-victim/)

(Approximately in the last 10 minutes …)</comment>


React Native Events in Gory Details: What Happens on the Way to Listeners - <AUTHOR> https://levelup.gitconnected.com/react-native-events-in-gory-details-what-happens-on-the-way-to-listeners-2cee6c55940c <comment><USER4> The method of explaining things is cute, but - for me at least - <USER2> opaque. These are concepts I already understand, and this "simplification" of them into analogy-land seems to obscure them beyond recognition in my mind.

Maybe someone of a different bent will find this more accessible?

<comment><USER5> Similar to you. I can almost never follow the analogy all the way through when I read articles like this. I'm usually lost by the second or third corollary drawn from it. I had thought this was just because I'm stupid until I read your comment.

<comment><USER6> I see... Basically, I have to get this message across: "The reason why RN (javascript side) uses unique objects -- frozen, even -- is because they need to have their STRICT equivalent on the 'other side' (java or xcode)".

That being said, I felt like I had 3 possibilities: (A) leave it like this, although this (to me) feels like a "shut up and believe me, this is how it works", (B) explain it in plain programming terms (a.k.a. review the code itself), but since this is not the main theme of the article -- and i'm not writing a book -- this needs to be quick, (C) trying to get the "feeling" across with an analogy, giving up on any pure code explanation

So basically a) no explanation at all b) explanation but might be too quick/bad/hard to understand or c) no explanation but a "graphic" idea of how things happens. I picked c), but what would people disagreeing have picked? (also, if there are options I did not think about, by all means point them out!).

I am genuinely interested, in case I write another similar article later on. Perhaps what I'm missing is that all those interested in my article actually already have this "feeling of how things work" and are looking for a long, thorough explanation about it?

(I've always loved analogies -- perhaps there are less people feeling the same way than I first thought...)

<comment><USER4> Disclaimer: I know this is subjective, so what I say below may absolutely not apply to others. Just how I see it.

> _b) explanation but might be too quick /bad/hard to understand_

I think this assumption may be underestimating your reader

> _Perhaps what I 'm missing is that all those interested in my article > actually already have this "feeling of how things work" and are looking for > a long, thorough explanation about it?_

This is possible, I guess, but my intuition tells me I'd feel the same is I were coming from "I know JS & React Native basics but haven't explored Native APIs and the bridge in detail yet". But I could be wrong.

> _I 've always loved analogies_

I use analogies a lot, and find them incredibly valuable for explaining complex concepts from _one domain_ , to someone _unfamiliar_ with that domain, in an _reduced and simplified_ way.

What you're doing here is trying to explain a new concept (a) in the domain the reader is already familiar with and (b) to expand, not reduce, the detail understanding of said concept.

(a) seems to make analogies unnecessary but (b) also seems to make analogies unsuitable (requiring you to draw second or third corrallories from them - <USER3> the gp said, bringing the reader further and further from the original concept).

<comment><USER6> > I think this assumption may be underestimating your reader

You probably nailed it right there. Although I swear this was not intentional, reading your comment and re-reading my article myself made me realize this _might_ be the unfortunate effect of me not knowing exactly what audience would be interested by my article.

As my first article on the topic of events, which was pure "theory" (meaning no code at all), got me questions on "how to use it though?", I wanted to write something with actual usable examples. Reading your opinion however, I might have messed up and, trying to be "more practical" ended up being "(too) simple"...

In any case, I will try to get more opinions -- thanks a lot for yours! Accurate and not insulting by any means, I'd love it if I could more of these -- and perhaps rewrite the analogy part into something more "meaty".

<comment><USER4> Pity there aren't too many commenters here; like stefantheard, I'm actually quite curious if it's just me(/us) and if there are plenty of people out there who'd really grok this.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Constaints-based spreadsheet prototype in Elm - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/esad/lot <comment><USER2> What does "constraints-based" mean?

<comment><USER3> The example is a good one -- the third cell is set to 300 AND a1 + a2. Then, a1 is set to 51, which automatically sets a2 to 249. At no point was a2 given a formula, it is just constrained by the formulas in other cells.

<comment><USER2> Oh, that's bizarre, but I like it.</comment></comment></comment>


RIM calls PlayBook discontinuation 'pure fiction' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/09/29/rim-calls-playbook-discontinuation-pure-fiction/

<comment><AUTHOR> When the RIM-9x0 devices were 'discontinued' it freed up traffic on the existing Mobitex network. Low traffic = increased reliability.

Can you think of any large bodies that may still use RIM-950 devices on Mobitex in cases of wide scale network congestion as happened following 9/11? How about "military, police, firefighters and ambulance services"1 Can't rule on Office of the President.

I can see something similar happen with PlayBook; a niche market procures the remaining 300,000 unsold devices and the once toted "iPad killer" moves into relative extinction.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobitex></comment>