Google rejects White House request to pull Mohammad film clip - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/14/us-protests-google-idUSBRE88D1MD20120914 <comment><USER3> From what I can gather, the White House didn't explicitly ask for the clip to be removed. Rather, they suggested the clip might violate YouTube's own terms of service.

From the article:

> White House officials had asked Google earlier on Friday to reconsider > whether the video had violated YouTube's terms of service

Still, the net effect is the same. The gesture was made with the goal of having the video removed from YouTube. It's unfortunate that our administration went down this path at all.

<comment><USER4> We have to ask why on earth the White House should even _care_ if the video violates Google's TOS. This was as close as they could get to a takedown request without violating the Constitution.

Really disgraceful, IMO.

<comment><USER5> Tapping someone on the shoulder and saying "Hey, could you take that down" is disgraceful? This was handled completely honorably and amicably as I can see. WH made a request, Google declined.

Save the outrage for things that need it, IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does the Obama administration really want to enter the business of suppressing every "inconvenient" video that might offend the sensibilities of Middle Eastern mobs?

<comment><USER7> It was just a request. A request they are free to make and Google is free to decline.

One (edit: four) of Obama's civilian employees was killed by an angry mob, ostensibly because of this video, so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask. I'm also glad Google declined.

<comment><USER8> > ostensibly because of this video

That video had nothing to do with anyone being killed. It was an excuse used by the mob to justify their desire for murder and violence, so they would not appear as complete savages.

I've watched that video, and the _worst_ I can describe it is with words: "silly" and "amateurish". It wouldn't even pass the litmus test for the type of speech that incites violence.

It's clear that those people were _egger and willing_ to kill Americans and Westerners long before this video was made.

> so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask

It's completely unreasonable to ask the American people to throw out parts of the Constitution to try to appease clearly incompatible religious and juvenile groups half a world away.

<comment><USER9> You're getting into dangerously ignorant territory with those words, and you haven't even done your research. Stop. That has no place here.

The protest, by some accounts, was for the most part not violent. The violence that did happen was a planned and targeted action perpetrated by a highly trained militia exploiting the cover of the protests.

Reinforcements were delayed intentionally, and the second attack clearly accounted for the contingency of a saferoom escape by smoking them out. Indeed, several hours before the attack occurred, it's possible that the area was being scoped out, and pictures taken.

Furthermore, the group that is apparently responsible has been identified, and is being pursued.

If you want to know more, the middle-eastern thread at SomethingAwful is tracking developments.

<comment><USER8> You're talking about 1 small part, of a much larger picture. The protests are still going on strong and spreading, and while they might have been started by 1 specific covert agenda, they are now being driven by anti-American and anti- Western sentiment, which appears to be deep seated.

<comment><USER10> While there is plenty of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, and it relates to protests, I'm not sure that has so much to do with the destruction of the embassy and the murder of the Libyans and Americans there.

I don't think that the President being seen to support deliberate antagonism of deep religious prejudices (by parties interested in more and worse war) will help.

You don't see the President publicly supporting strident anti-semitism or holocaust denialism or racism or eugenics, either - though those are taboos for western society more than for predominantly Muslim societies; consider how much Ahmedinejad's casual holocaust denial has done to maintain anger about Iran in the West.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I would like to know here is:

1\. How frequently US administration asks Google and other content companies to pull content for political reasons?

2\. Has Google ever complied with these requests?

3\. How much of this content was pulled because of blasphemy reasons?

4\. Is it the official policy of US government to try to censure any speech which can cause negative reaction from violent extremists abroad, or there some violent extremists that US government is more afraid of than others? If so, who takes these decisions and is his salary paid from my taxes?

Ideally, these questions would be answered by the free press. But with current state of affairs they are more likely to engage in political gamesmanship and issues like which politician's dog ran away 30 years ago and who of the politicians was a mean kid in kindergarten.

Also one must note that while White House has, so far, been powerless to remove any content, any of the RIAA members can instantly remove virtually any content from YouTube just by the virtue of claiming it's infringing. Of course, if the victim fights back fierce enough, it can be reinstated - <USER2> then it can be removed again by another claim, can't it?

<comment><USER12> This doesn't completely answer your questions, but take a look at the Google Transparency Report: <http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect> hasn't been translated into Arabic yet.

<comment><USER13> @seanmcdirmid Your comment is dead so I cannot respond to it directly.

 _"Arabs protesting the video didn't make the video more visible in the western world (the video is trash anyways)."_

I would have never heard of this video were it not for the protests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is the White House even making that request? At which point does religious appeasement start to become institutionalized through fear?

<comment><USER15> It's not religious appeasement, you don't see them appeasing Buddhists or even Christians.

<comment><USER16> As a non-American, I see religious appeasement of Christians all the time when I see US politics.

<comment><USER17> You haven't followed some of the news from the health care debate and pressure on family services from the government. The rule making would not be described as "appeasement".

People don't see how much groups like Catholic Family Services or ELCA help in a lot of places the government has ignored. They don't advertise how much they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I guess killing diplomats is the new way to get White House assistance for your special interests project.

Rewarding a behavior is the best way to get more of it.

</comment><comment><USER6> On the same grounds, should the White House have asked Youtube to censor the numerous clips of Kerry and Biden praising the killing of Bin Laden at the DNC last week?

I'm sure the Islamic world might have taken offense.

<comment><USER19> Did you mean "could" because you said "should" which makes the whole thing read like nonsense.

<comment><USER6> No I didn't mean "could".

Of course, the White House "could" ask for any video to be censored/suppressed. The question is "should" they on the same "it incites" Middle Eastern mobs premise.

<comment><USER19> And like you said it was rhetorical. And the implication was clearly that asking for review of X implies they "should" ask for review of all things that weakly resemble X. Which your point was to make the initial request seem dumb but I'm pointing out is logically incoherent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good for Google. Unlike Visa, Paypal, et al. who blocked payments to Wikileaks at the government's request.

<comment><USER21> In fairness to Visa and Paypal...

The government was a good deal more serious about the WikiLeaks thing. This is a one off film... WikiLeaks was going to keep releasing the 'news' for as long as it existed. The nature of that threat merited more robust action.

The US Government, Google, Visa and Paypal are no worse than any of the world's other governments or corporations. Little better... I grant you that... but no worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What a joke. Obama et al just lost a lot of my respect.

<comment><USER23> He already had lost all of mine due to the drone strikes, rendition, and other atrocities, ... but this certainly doesn't help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> YouTube should have removed the video based on their own guidelines. This can be classified as a hate speech.

<http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines> :

We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity).

<comment><USER25> Exactly.

Now, my question is, why _doesn't_ this video violate that guideline? Isn't its entire purpose to denigrate Islam?

<comment><USER26> AFAICT it is because:

      Individual != Group

even if the group considers that individual to be someone who represents them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The United States is a nation argued into existence, in part by blatantly inflammatory speech. It's in our national DNA, and it should stay there.

<comment><USER10> What about blatantly inflammatory homophobia and holocaust denial? Those are also blatantly inflammatory speech covered by freedom of speech, but it doesn't mean they have to be socially acceptable.

<comment><USER28> Indeed, but in _civilized_ societies, socially unacceptable speech is countered either by ignoring it, or by more speech. Not by rioting and killing people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Good. The request shouldn't have even been made.

<comment><USER30> Well Google voluntarily pulled the video from Libya and Egypt

<comment><USER31> It said in the article that it was to comply with local laws.

<comment><USER32> I Am Not A Lawyer, let alone an International Lawyer, but the article seemed to imply that it was blocked in some countries (eg, India) to comply with local blasphemy laws (related news: Indian Skeptic Charged With Blasphemy For Rationally Explaining Miracle: [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/04/14/indi...](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/04/14/indian- skeptic-charged-with-blasphemy-for-rationally-explaining-a-miracle/)), but Libya and Egypt were just special-cased.

Does anyone know if Libya and Egypt have blasphemy laws, or just volatility?

<comment><USER33> Just a heads up on your link:

The guy wasn't charged for pointing out "this isn't a miracle". He was charged for following it up with a series of accusations -- claiming that it was a scam set up by local priests (defamation), and making comments about how religious people are "gullible", "regressive", "irrational", etc. (provocation). He went well beyond debunking and into the realm of conjecture/speculation, and ended up violating a number of local laws by doing so.

<comment><USER31> And what was the verdict?

<comment><USER33> I don't believe the case has been tried, yet. Last I heard, he was in Finland (to avoid arrest) and his lawyers launched a series of appeals, including one attempt to have the "religious provocation" law declared unconstitutional.

As far as I know, none of his appeals relate to the "scam" remarks, which even in the US would fall under defamation laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Kids. Have they never heard of the Streisand effect. It's pretty much in one place now. Take it down and it'll be back up 10 fold on youtube mirrored, and then also on other services like vimeo etc. You can't kill these things. Asking just looks native

<comment><USER10> What you may not have considered is that it is more important that Obama be seen to do something about the offensive videos, than actually to achieve anything by it.

Pretty sure the administration knows they cannot kill the video. Explaining this to people we have to deal with diplomatically is another issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> As I commented on this issue earlier,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4511247>

"As we read news reports about violent responses to the video, from people who seem to be quite confused about who produced the video, it's important for all of us to remember the basic issue here. The basic issue is whether people in free countries, like most readers of Hacker News, are going to be able to enjoy the right of free speech throughout their country, on any subject, or whether any American or Dutch person or other person accustomed to free speech who happens to be within reach of attack by a crazy foreign person has to prepare for war just to continue to exercise free speech. On my part, I'm going to continue to comment on public policy based on verifiable facts and reason and logic, even if that seems offensive. I am not going to shrink from saying that people in backward, poorly governed countries that could never have invented the Internet have no right to kill and destroy just because someone in a free country laughs or scorns at their delusions. The people who are destroying diplomatic buildings and killing diplomats are declining to use thoughtful discussion to show that they are anything other than blights on humankind."

Allow me to reemphasize this point. The many participants on HN who criticize TSA "security theater" as a meaningless reduction in the freedom of people who travel to the United States are right on the basic point. If free citizens of free countries can't live in freedom because of fear of terrorists, the terrorists have already won. You and I should be able to speak our minds and express our opinions in the manner of all people in free countries--sometimes agreeing with one another, sometimes disagreeing, but always letting the other guy have his say. To engage in self-censorship because of fear of violent thugs is to be defeated by the thugs.

I think jerf correctly responded to this issue the other day:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4510637>

 _If I organize a riot involving thousands of people that I manage to incite into killing people, and I claim my reason is that I heard that some guy is Glasgow made fun of the American soccer team over beer... that guy is Glasgow is not the real reason. It doesn't even qualify as a metaphorical fig leaf, it's just a lie. When the excuse is this tiny, you shouldn't even give it the time of day._

AFTER EDIT: Thanks for the two replies to this comment posted as I type this edit. I will defend to the utmost your right to free speech, to be enjoyed wherever you live or travel.

I wonder if the reason that books by Robert Spencer

[http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Infidels-Guide- Koran/dp/15969...](http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Infidels-Guide- Koran/dp/1596981040/)

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Truth-About-Muhammad- Intolerant/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Truth-About-Muhammad- Intolerant/dp/1596985283/)

have not been used as a pretext for rioting is that the instigators of riots don't want to draw attention to these books, which might lead a lot of people around the world to reexamine their beliefs.

<comment><USER19> Freedom of speech =/= freedom from consequences.

You can go all Fred Phelps and tell some marine's family he's in hell now at his funeral and that they are inbred hillbillies that could never have invented the internet but don't expect shock on my part if his dad and brothers decide that would be a good time to beat the shit out of you.

<comment><USER36> ... and that would be illegal for them to do, and for good reason.

The solution to bad speech is not violence. It's more speech.

<comment><USER19> I never said violence was the solution, straw man much?

My point is that freedom of speech doesn't mean your speech never has negative consequences.

Nonviolent, legal example: you insult a customer and your boss fires you on the spot.

What is the common thread? None of this really has anything to do with freedom of speech in the west. It's a massive red herring that people keep bringing up in this thread.

<comment><USER37> Interesting, I would actually say that all of society, almost on every country in the world, is governed by violence. Why dont people break the law? Because there are consequences to doing it, and if you don't voluntarily accept the consequences, then you'll be violently forced to take them. All of society actually ultimatly depends on violence as the mode of enforcing order.

<comment><USER38> > All of society actually ultimatly depends on violence as the mode of > enforcing order.

It's funny how for the last 400 years or so all men and women who have been speaking and writing about politics and about how the world should be run in general have been trying to hide Hobbes and his ideas under a very thick rug. But his ideas keep creeping back in. Maybe because he was right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can we get a link to the video?

<comment><USER7> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAiOEV0v2RM>

<comment><USER40> I was expecting some sophisticated propaganda piece. And not some crappy community theater actors doing some play for a public service television show. "Somebody" is really easy to troll.

<comment><USER41> Honestly, the first time I got linked to that video I thought it was a joke. I would swear those production values could only be that bad if done _on purpose_ for comedic effect. Especially the random dubbing in of "Islam" or "Muslim."

<comment><USER42> Re: Production values.

Something that looks like amateur-hour to us in the West (and the video _is_ amateur) might not look that way to someone in Egypt/Libya/Etc.

Have you seen any Middle Eastern TV? It isn't exactly high on the production value.

This might have some effect on how this film is being perceived as well.

And yes I'm being serious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is the takeaway message..that the Obama administration says we have permission to put whatever we want on Youtube as long as it doesn't offend Islam?

<comment><USER10> The takeaway message is nothing of that sort. Let's not find dictatorships behind every bush. Google decided not to do what Obama requested, and nobody is getting concrete shoes over it. Obama is certainly not picking on you individually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> One thing that I have not seen expressed very much is how people in other countries, especially in intolerant or oppressive ones, are not aware of the level of freedom of speech guaranteed to all citizens in the US. In turn, Americans are not aware of their lack of awareness. This causes no end of misunderstanding.

I remember seeing an interview where Chrisiane Amanpour is told by an Iranian member of parliament, "I don't think there is a place in the world where freedom means that people can say whatever they want, where they can lie or make whatever accusation they choose. For example, in the United States, can someone say or write something against their country's national interest and security?" Ms. Amanmpour replies, "Yes. Yes, they can".

Here is the clip:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkHzljMtB4&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkHzljMtB4&feature=player_detailpage#t=208s)

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd guess the fraudulent redubbing of these actors lines into fatwa provoking ones means the actors probably have some recourse to get the video pulled.

<comment><USER27> Maybe, maybe not. Depends on their contracts. If such documents even exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> People in Arab countries aren't generally angry at western freedom of speech, they are angry at being denigrated and being denied the opportunities for self advancement that we safely take for granted.

I wish that the media focus was truly on the broader issues behind this anger than placing so much focus on one ridiculous video.

</comment><comment><USER45> I have petition the Obama administration to "Uphold the United States Constitution. Make a commitment to not ask a corporation or organization to censor user content"

<http://wh.gov/WfFk>

Apologies if this is not appropriate for HN. I just find this disturbing and felt that I need to do something.

</comment><comment><USER46> Google is a business and it has every right to operate as it sees fit. Being a company that is headquartered in the US, I can't believe it would censor this video at all in any jurisdiction. It's not out of character for them considering the lengths it went to appease China but I don't think that was the right decision either.

I would hope that if I was ever faced with a similar situation I would choose based on my conscience not on ignorant local laws, what was best for the business, or what seemed to be the easiest choice at the time.

Edited for grammar.

<comment><USER47> moral and respect towards other religions. jews is backing google, i've said enuf.

<comment><USER46> This confuses and disgusts me. It also makes me wish I hadn't made the parent comment just so this casual antisemitism didn't have a parent comment to latch onto.

<comment><USER47> wow antisemitism, glad you brought that up, you've unmasked yourself jew.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How riled up will they be when they see the White House-approved full length feature film of the killing of Bin Laden? Will same principles apply?

</comment><comment><USER48> Really sad to see the whitehouse's kneejerk response is:

\- can we ban it?

\- can we arrest the man who made it?

</comment><comment><USER49> I think if a video causes a global uproar and deaths of US diplomats overseas, it's in the best interest of the US to take it down. I know about freedom of speech etc., but at what cost?

</comment><comment><USER50> They'd rather start WWIII and be nationalized (as many have already argued for, for different reasons, monopoly etc.) as a result than break a principle.

</comment><comment><USER51> But they blocked the video in Libya and Egypt.

</comment><comment><USER52> The gov should rather forbid the islam. It isn't compatible with a modern world.

</comment><comment><USER53> So the guy who produced the video is Egyptian? And is apparently facebook friends with the Metropolitan Seraphim of Glastonbury [http://www.policymic.com/articles/14762/nakoula-basseley- nak...](http://www.policymic.com/articles/14762/nakoula-basseley-nakoula-is- sam-bacile-and-robert-brownell-is-alan-roberts-behind-innocence-of-muslims)

When there is a situation this awful, why does it have to be so utterly ridiculous as well?

I'm not sure whether the inability of many fanatics to think before they aim makes them more, or less scary.</comment>


Why is suicide on the rise in the US – but falling in most of Europe? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/why-is-suicide-on-the-rise-in-the-us-but-falling-in-most-of-europe-98366 <comment><USER2> My opinion? Because opioid/benzodiazepine abuse rates and cost of living are on the rise, while wages and labor force participation rates are stagnating.

When people are living paycheck to paycheck, things get ugly.</comment>


OS X emulation layer for Linux - <AUTHOR> http://darling.dolezel.info/en/Darling <comment><USER2> About a week ago, the author posted a report to his blog [http://www.abclinuxu.cz/blog/doli/2013/7/darling-progress- re...](http://www.abclinuxu.cz/blog/doli/2013/7/darling-progress-report- cervenec-2013).

Summary:

      * It can run basic console programs like Midnight Commander, vim
        or bash, so compatibility of system API is rather good.
      * Dynamic loader is being refactored, because it can not unload
        dynamic libraries now. In the future there will be API that
        would allow loading OS X library into native code.
      * There is a FUSE module for read-only access to .dmg files, so
        that it is not necessary to unpack them.

GNUstep is a problem; it does not seem to be very alive. It does have three backends, but none of them works reliably. The long term (slightly crazy) plan is to implement the basic Cocoa classes over Qt.

Right now the target application that should work is Angry Birds.

<comment><USER3> I can't figure out why GNUstep has languished so. Given how many ObjC developers there are out there, and given how nice it would be to target for multi-platform apps, it feels like the sort of thing that should have gotten good pretty quickly in a world of resurgent Apple.

<comment><USER4> ...and this is the moment that you realize there _aren 't_ so many Obj-C developers out there as much as there are _that many_ iOS developers out there, all being forced to use one particular language.

 _Edit_ : For the record, I am a fan of Obj-C, not an iOS developer, and would love to see more movement on GNUStep. I just need the time...

<comment><USER5> Really, I think there are plenty of ObjC fans, but ObjC developers can be divided into two groups:

1\. Those who use it unwillingly, and happily use some other environment when not targeting Apple platforms.

2\. Those who are big Apple fans and don't see the point of targeting non- Apple platforms in the first place.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but not enough for GNUStep to get traction.

<comment><USER6> Very few things can be cleanly divided into two groups.

Group 3: Those who use it because they like the language itself and would happily target non-Apple platforms if it was a tenable solution.

<comment><USER7> I tried writing an Objective-C application intended for server-side deployment, but finding a Foundation library that worked was infuriating. The ones that compiled were not feature complete, and the ones that promised more were not maintained.

It really is a lot easier to write Objective-C code than C++ if you have access to all that Foundation and the associated frameworks provide, but getting it to compile for your target system is not exactly easy. Many of those components simply do not exist outside of OS X.

I'm not even concerned about GUI bindings, as I imagine those would be really awkward.

<comment><USER6> I feel ya. I've occasionally thought about server-side Obj-C, but usually dismiss it because I enjoy Python and Ruby so much. However, there are several ideas I'd like to build out for cross-platform desktop apps (for developers), and I really wish I could use Obj-C because I just flat-out enjoy programming with that language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cocotron has been at this for a while:

[http://www.cocotron.org/](http://www.cocotron.org/)

(EDIT: Gave Cocotron an 'a' it didn't deserve!)

<comment><USER9> Cocotron (without "a") and GNUStep are intended as source-level compatibility layers. You replace Apple's libraries with them at compile time, and obtain a native binary or the target platform.

This project is akin to Wine. It allows to run OS X binaries on Linux, without recompiling.

The Cocotron blog hasn't been updated in a while, but the project is still alive: [http://code.google.com/p/cocotron/source/list](http://code.google.com/p/cocotron/source/list)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Previous HN discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893022)

</comment><comment><USER11> Before this there was maloader [0] which was capable enough to run Apple's CLI toolchain. Really quite simple shim code!

[0]: [https://github.com/shinh/maloader](https://github.com/shinh/maloader)

</comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of Étoilé [1] a Software Environment based on GNUstep, which was quite promising when I was last interested in it (2008)

[1] [http://etoileos.com/](http://etoileos.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> So, does this mean that objective-c (minus graphics) works? It'd be a pretty big deal to be able to setup a CI server for unit tests on a linux box, rather have having to get some alternative mac-in-the-cloud, or something else equally ridiculous

</comment><comment><USER14> Surprised there are no comments about the icon. I think the icon is awesome (so geeeeeeky)!

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this mature enough to run dosbox in wine compiled for OS X? I want to know how deep this rabbit hole can go.

<comment><USER16> Once you get DOSBox running don't forget to boot up Win 3.11.

<comment><USER17> Also 68k mac emulation, which one dude got to boot OS X...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm currently playing with OS X ML 10.8.4 on custom hardware; (btw slowest performance than other OSes, ram hungry [lots of eye candy thought ])

I find pretty interesting the UNIX terminal and X11 (Xquartz) where you can ssh to your remote box or vm with linux and load GUI apps locally while code is running in the remote box (like a sandbox).

Example command:...

ssh email@example.com -X

iceweasel

...

and browser GUI will launch in your OSX (also work on linux) ( the magic is the parameter -X , i discovered that recently, very useful, hope it helps someone )</comment>


My Improbable Graduation: From a Tiny Village in Ghana to Johns Hopkins - happy-go-lucky http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/06/03/531032582/my-improbable-graduation-from-a-tiny-village-in-ghana-to-johns-hopkins <comment><USER2> While the guy's story is very heart-warming, the most important part, which they quickly glossed over, was his getting married to an American lady who helped him migrate. Without that marriage, he would most probably still be in Ghana.

Also: he was performing an important role in Ghana delivering medicines, and by migrating, now that sector has lost an important person. I wish he would go back with his newfound knowledge and help make things better in Ghana, where he is needed much more than in the US.

<comment><USER3> The part about marriage is very true. I take issue with your other part, though.

I don't think his domain knowledge delivering medicine in Ghana is of very high value. It is probably easily attained. That means that all the value of his going back to Ghana is provided on the basis of his education. This means that anyone with his education is a good candidate for the job.

So why ask immigrants specifically to compensate for brain drain? Why shouldn't any of the people graduating from Johns Hopkins go to Ghana and solve their healthcare? Any of them would be needed much more there than in the US.

Tying people to the country of their birth is nonsense. If it's utilitarianism we seek, let's send our infectious diseases experts over there. That's where they're needed. Not at the CDC.

<comment><USER4> > So why ask immigrants specifically to compensate for brain drain?

They are already fluent in the local language(s), so they can be more effective right from the start. Of course that doesn't mean that others can't support them, even if they have no personal connection to the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Place this as another bullet point in the "luck plays a huge role" hypothesis with regards to success. Imagine how many other poor children in Ghana or elsewhere are just as capable of earning a degree from an elite institution but don't have the opportunity because of their lot in regards to where they were born.

<comment><USER6> Even if you did give all those the opportunities, what about the rest?

We always seem to be so worried about people with certain "capabilities", whatever those are, not being pulled from certain areas or not getting opportunities, but... what about everyone else? There's far more of them. Isn't this just luck also?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very inspiring and heartwarming. I wish the best to the lad and his new family.

Stories like these really make you put things into perspective. Here I am complaining about how hard my professors are in a crap university while this guy comes from the depths of poverty and works his way up through one of the best public health programs in the world. My daily problems are nothing compared to the obstacles this guy had to overcome.

Kudos to that man.

<comment><USER8> How do you define "crap university"?

<comment><USER7> A university that puts most of its effort on improving its ranking and gaining more $$$ whilst the actual quality of education declines.

<comment><USER8> Interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having lived in Ghana in mid 2000's this story does not surprise me. The team that I worked with went on to work for Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Another colleague built up the Internet in Africa, building 15 Internet Exchanges in different countries for under 200,000 dollars.

In 1974 the literacy rate in Ghana was the same as in Portugal. Things diverged. Portugal became a democracy, Ghana went through many years of dictatorship and misguided help from the west.

I remember once interviewing one person sent from the States to help the software company I was working with. His expertises was 'Network Streamlining', that turned out to be sorting out cables. If you take the expense of sending somebody from the states, versus sending from Ghana to the West for training versus the payback. We should be sending more people to the west for training rather than the other way round.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good skills mate. Your mum laid the groundwork (as most mums are wont to do - mine did as well but in a different way) and you delivered, through sheer hard work.

"My uncles from my father's side took all his properties, per the custom in my village in Ghana" \- that looks like a serious problem and needs some analysis but I think it is a real problem.

I wish you all the best.

<comment><USER11> No inheritance from the mother's husband sounds like a pretty normal setup for an area where paternity certainty is very low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dreams are possible in America only and only if you have a green card...don't bother about the suffering rest who were born elsewhere

<comment><USER13> Not true. Plenty of people come to USA with H1B/F1 and make a good life here. Hell even Sundar Pichai is one of those people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there some good organizations to donate to that helps underprivileged kids get through school?

</comment><comment><USER15> Gave me goosebumps throughout the entire time reading it. Much success to the author.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've always wondered why the large tech companies/universities who claim they care so much about diversity don't send their recruiters around the world to track bright, persevering teenagers such as the young man of the article, and bring them into their organization (providing proper mentorship/training in the case of companies). It seems like it would be a fairly cheap way to have a very diverse organization with brilliant people from all over the world.

<comment><USER17> How do you know they don't and how do you think would this be achieved for cheap other than recruiting at the best (private) schools of the country?

<comment><USER18> My anecodatal experience is they don't because I had friends in South Africa, DRC, and Nigeria who came from more privileged middle class backgrounds and still struggled due to a lack of education. They were never recruited by tech firms due to the issues the author faced. One asked me to refer them into some of the firms here but I was unable to get them in.

I don't know if it would have been cheaper to recruit them but I do know they had no chance here in America. They have hustled their way to a living but have worked 10x harder than me because I have an American citizenship and degree.

<comment><USER19> Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to graft a form of certification by huge companies on a MOOC curriculum for countries like CAR/CDR/etc. After all big companies do something close in IT (CISCO/Microsoft certifications). Indeed there are some eDx professional certificates but they that are really costly as they are aimed at a western audience.

What about a similar certificate at $100 (one month revenue in Kivu) but in Kinyarwanda (for targeting the right students)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've always got mixed feelings on stories like this.

On one hand, it's a heartwarming story of a man breaking through barriers to achieve success from desperate beginnings. Kind of an American dream story, really.

But if everyone with those qualities leaves the community, the rest of the people are helpless and will be mired in poverty forever.

It's difficult, morally, to balance the benefit gained by the guy who took the action, compared to the loss his community suffered by his departure.

In any case, I think this sort of thing is a significant reason why countries don't develop. Change always starts from a small group of changemakers - <AUTHOR> those people all just emigrate, nothing will ever change.

Migration since the 60's has become a giant IQ-sorting system and that's having huge consequences on all sides. And this never seems to get discussed, oddly.

<comment><USER21> > Migration since the 60's has become a giant IQ-sorting system and that's > having huge consequences on all sides. And this never seems to get > discussed, oddly.

Not in the US, where there is virtually nothing except family-based migration.

<comment><USER2> Wait, what? Every year at least 65,000 skilled workers (and actually many more) migrate from other parts of the world to settle down in the US. Sure, there's a lot of family-based migration too, but there's also a lot of talent- based migration. Countries like Canada have a 'points' system that specifically recruits talent and qualifications.

<comment><USER21> Those 65,000 workers you are referring to are on H1B visa which might not necessarily require them to be high-skilled. This visa is also a lottery.

When I think about skill based migration, there should be a merit-based program available, point-based system implemented in Australia, Canada, and some European countries are a good option.

<comment><USER2> > Those 65,000 workers you are referring to are on H1B visa which might not > necessarily require them to be high-skilled.

Looks like you have no experience with the program; I do, as I was on H1-B at one time. It is solely for the purposes of hiring people for jobs for which _there are no Americans available_. By definition, it's for highly skilled people.

> This visa is also a lottery.

Again, a misconception and too much reliance on the word "lottery". It is a lottery, but among all the applicants, who are (as per the paragraph above) highly skilled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Amazing story.Congratulations!</comment>


The Economic State of Millennials in America [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/7ec953a2-1a28-4371-83c2-bcc8a3a825c7/the-economic-state-of-millennials-in-america.pdf <comment><USER2> Point #3 just kills me. I really dislike how home ownership has become the equivalent of an investment account. It's a shame that the housing market has received such favorable tax treatment.</comment>


PHP class for Goo.gl - <AUTHOR> http://code.basvd.nl/google_url_shortener_1.0/

<comment><USER2> Hmmm - overkill, why make a dependency on json_decode?

If they are going to use such a heavy duty regex to grab urls, just regex the response for the single answer (shorturl) you are looking for too.

Fsockopen alternative could also be supported with about 5 lines more.</comment>


The world's tallest buildings, since 2600 B.C. - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world#History

<comment><USER2> Also see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_three_tallest_struc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_three_tallest_structures_in_the_world)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow - I missed that. That's actually the much better reference. Except for all the TV antennas screwing it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Burj Dubai is now the tallest man-made structure on earth. This news amongst much other fanfare regarding Dubai makes me wonder: What's going on there. I know UAE is an oil country - but where is all that money coming from? And who is spending the money moving there?

Basically: does anyone have any info on "what's up" with Dubai?

<comment><USER4> It's a regional and financial hub city like New York/London and that's where the money is coming from now. I don't think Dubai has had any significant oil revenue for quite some time.

<comment><USER5> From Wikipedia:

"Although the United Arab Emirates is becoming less dependent on natural resources as a source of revenue, petroleum and natural gas exports still play an important role in the economy, especially in Abu Dhabi. A massive construction boom, an expanding manufacturing base, and a thriving services sector are helping the UAE diversify its economy. Nationwide, there is currently $350 billion worth of active construction projects."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Religious monopoly was broken by the Washington Monument.</comment>


Peter Thiel's CS183: Startup - Class 5 Notes Essay - <AUTHOR> http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-5-notes-essay <comment><USER2> For me, these class notes are the most thought-provoking stuff that has surfaced HN for a while. The first few lectures took this bird-eye view to entrepreneurship, which was very refreshing. Thiel's view about competition vs monopolies, or as he puts it, globalization vs technology, was a new point of view to me. And this more practical discussion about company culture is quite spot on in my experience: argumentative culture is better than too nice culture.

<comment><USER3> It depends about what you're arguing. A "python vs. nodejs" argument carried on for days isn't valuable; other arguments w.r.t. tech/engineering might be.

Related: An advantage of a "non-diverse" engineering culture is so the arguments can focus on meaningful topics that push the company forward, and not on topics that arise from basic, core cultural differences

<comment><USER2> Yes, I agree, what I meant to express is that the discussion between Max, Peter and Thiel captures quite well that you should have arguments about important things and that too nice culture can be also toxic as it leads to these passive-aggressive expressions of frustration. It hurted to read and realize that as I've been personally guilty of latter in certain occasions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the post: "the guy said that he liked to play hoops. That single sentence lost him the job" - Max Levchin

I know culture fit is critical but where is the line between between not a fit and just having a hobby not shared by the rest of the team?

<comment><USER5> Surprise surprise, the next paragraph: "PayPal also had a hard time hiring women."

This kind of thinking is what Mitch Kapor calls a "Mirrortocracy". It can work, in the sense that maybe you can recruit enough people just like you, down to _quirks of phrasing_ , and succeed in your mission. There are advantages to belonging to a cohort. It is the reason why people in the military wear uniforms and go through bootcamp.

But categorically stating that diversity is wrong is, well, typical of the provincial attitude that caused Levchin to run his companies the way he did.

But just because he's rich doesn't mean he's right.

<comment><USER6> Aside from being "provincial," is he wrong? Diversity creates communications latency. For example, on HN I can refer to "latency" in this context--it would take way more syllables to express the same thought to lots of the people I interact with every day.

Part of the problem is that "Diversity" is being misused. It's not "diversity" if a company of 100 people has exactly the same demographics as the city it's in. That's homogeneity: diversity would mean that each company's demographics are wildly skewed in unpredictable directions.

Thomas Sowell has written about how intra-company diversity has harmful economic implications. For example, factories in New York used to segregate on religious lines--because if your Catholics are all off on Sunday, and your Jewish employees are all off on Saturday, then you can only work five days per week; all-Catholic or all-Jewish factories could do six days.

<comment><USER5> That cuts at the root of the disagreement. Categorically stating that diversity is "completely wrong" for a startup ignores plenty of counterexamples, so, yes, he's wrong. Diversity creates communications latency. It creates other things like tolerance and broader understanding. It also ( _ahem_ ) widens your hiring pool.

And no, I wouldn't want a company that reflects the demographics of my city. That would mean no black people and mexicans do all the cooking. :)

Levchin is free to run his companies any way he wants, inside the law, and he's done amazingly well. But rejecting people who _simply use an odd phrase once_ is, to me, not a example to celebrate, especially in a course for students.

"I did this and succeeded" is not equal to "everyone else is wrong". Creating a mirrortocracy is equal to claiming "I am right, all the time, and I do not require outside opinions. All I require are clones." That's a pretty heavy bet to make, and its arrogance is not excused by success.

<comment><USER6> It's hard to come up with a counterexample when you're looking at outliers. A successful startup is already statistically improbable, so I don't think you can easily say that if Paypal had hired more jocks instead of nerds, it would have done even better.

So we have to look at this from first principles. When you have a less diverse team, you don't just have short-term communications latency. You also have the advantage that really similar people can push each other more, because it's easier to tell if you're doing 1% better than someone else if you're both doing the same thing.

I don't know how valuable "tolerance" is. That depends on what you're tolerating. If diversity trains your ability to "tolerate," it sounds like a bad thing, the way having a broken air conditioner teaches you to tolerate heat. The belief that it creates broader understanding is also up for debate-- in my experience, people express a wider range of thoughts in a more homogeneous environment, because they're less worried about offending people.

One last thing: "its arrogance is not excused by success." That's not very Bayesian. If someone has an unusual opinion, puts it into practice, and beats the competition, shouldn't you lower your estimate of their arrogance, and raise your estimate of your own arrogance?

<comment><USER5> A good counterexample would be Lotus, and possibly Flickr. I'm not claiming PayPal would have been more successful otherwise. I don't know. Many strategies can be successful. Levchin is the one teaching kids that everyone else is "completely wrong", in the face of proof to the contrary.

And there are problems with Levchin's strategy. In the next breath he lamented that it narrowed the company's hiring pool by 50%. That should give anyone pause. His strategy had a direct, measurable cost that could turn into a strategic disadvantage.

There are also serious effects down the road, as today's engineers become tomorrow's investors. If only Brand X people get funded, and hire Brand X people, who turn around and become investors themselves, isn't that a serious problem? You can't adjust your "priors" about other kinds of people if they never get a chance in the first place. Maybe Brand X is optimal, but _you don't know_ , and claiming to know is arrogance.

Kapor has a good essay on this: [http://mkapor.posterous.com/beyond-arrington- and-cnn-lets-lo...](http://mkapor.posterous.com/beyond-arrington-and-cnn-lets- look-at-the-rea)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bit about respecting your coworkers, rather than simply being nice, really struck a chord. When I think back, the worst working situation I had was the one where I lost respect for my coworkers. I think it's an important question to ask yourself. If the answer is no, it's time to move on.

</comment><comment><USER8> What in the name of the thousand green hells does this have to do with computer science?

 _EDIT_ : There is of course a perfectly legitimate interest in teaching this sort of thing; it just has nothing to do with computer science. Doesn't Stanford have a faculty of, I don't know, bubble inflation or whatever?

<comment><USER9> This is a course on starting a software startups. Culture is incredibly important to be successful at that. Max and Stephen are brilliant developers. So it's probably good to take cues from them on making a culture to facilitate great creations of computer science.

*spelling.

<comment><USER10> Queues, hilarious. The funny thing is, even though misspelled, it could be made to work. If levchin is interpteted as a producer and anyone listening a consumer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _PayPal chose C++ early on. It's kind of crappy language. There's plenty to complain about. But the founding engineers never argued about it. Anyone that did want to argue about it wouldn't have fit in. Arguing would have impeded progress.

...if there's a strong sense of what's right already, don't argue about it._

I found that interesting. This suggests the team is important, but the language is not.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is very informative.

The only thing I'd quibble with is the claim that teams should not be diverse. I think, unless everyone is a generalist, there's no way to start a company without some diversity of skills. The other day, another mathematician told me "We should start a company together," and it sounded like a terrible idea. A mathematician needs to work with a great web developer, or a finance expert, or some other kind of complement.

</comment><comment><USER13> This series has been incredibly informative so far. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nothing betters a fresh and profound point of view on the things you think about everyday.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for posting the notes. I really appreciate it!

</comment><comment><USER16> Really enjoy reading these, thanks for posting

</comment><comment><USER17> Thanks for posting! Appreciate the detail!</comment>


CrazyBlindDate - <AUTHOR>

What do you guys think of the CrazyBlindDate idea? They are on CrunchBase.
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/crazyblinddate
I really like the online dating concept, and have thought about going after the blind date market.  Would love to hear your thoughts. <comment><USER2> I was an early and active user of CrazyBlindDate.com and always hoped they would re-launch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you ever go on a blind date though the service?</comment></comment>


PG says London is not a startup hub as you can't get into the Ritz with trainers - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/paulg/status/740226080116736000 <comment><USER2> Interesting how the Ritz tried to "engage" with Altman after his tweet. I wonder what they would have said. "Sorry, the rule is for other people, not rich people like you" ?

</comment><comment><USER3> BI actually managed to write an article about all this... [http://uk.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-ritz-sneakers- paul-...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-ritz-sneakers-paul-graham- london-not-a-startup-hub-2016-6?r=US&IR=T)

</comment><comment><USER4> Germany can't have startup hub because they are still formally addressing each other.

European cities have different neighborhoods. Relaxed and informal means different things in different neighborhood. I bet that if Altman would walk in with actual puma, they could arrange something. Not getting into somewhere with trainers in London is a sign that Altman was lost in the wrong neighborhood. Back away slowly and go to Slough</comment>


Ask HN: Is the new iMessage app a threat to whatsapp? - <AUTHOR> WWDC launch of new iMessage app is awesome. what does this mean to whatsapp? http://www.bgr.in/news/wwdc-2016-apples-imessage-is-now-a-lot-cooler-and-fun/ <comment><USER2> No. WhatsApp's primary markets are India and Brazil. In India, iOS's market share is less than 2%. In Brazil, it's a respectable 12%, but WhatsApp is hugely dominant in contemporary communication in Brazil.

[1] [http://www.statista.com/statistics/262157/market-share- held-...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/262157/market-share-held-by- mobile-operating-systems-in-india/) [2] [http://www.statista.com/statistics/262167/market-share- held-...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/262167/market-share-held-by- mobile-operating-systems-in-brazil/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It is not even close. Unless this runs on Android phones it would not be much of a threat to whatsapp.</comment>


Not sure you should take that start-up job? Think like an investor - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/28/not-sure-you-should-take-that-startup-job-think-like-an-investor/

<comment><USER2> One very important part that this strategy seems to ignore is one's passion towards the startup's vision. I think it's essential to work on something that you really believe in, and everything else is secondary.</comment>


The Power Of One – Ensuring daily improvement. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.andrewvy.com/the-power-of-one-ensure-improvement/

<comment><USER2> I came to technology quite late, after chasing another career path. When I was trying to learn how to code I got into the habit of doing something, anything, even one miniscule thing related to programming, every day without exception.

Even if it was just a matter of looking up the api for one java method, that would still count as my "one thing" for the day.

The habit rapidly took hold, and years later I'm still doing it. After a hard day of programming I'll still spent at least ten minutes working on a side- project, even if it's just reading about a library I may want to use or committing a tiny refactor.

If there's one habit I would encourage people to take up, it's doing 'one small thing' every single day.</comment>


To Hell with Bad Email Software - <AUTHOR> http://peterwilson.cc/to-hell-with-bad-email-software/

<comment><USER2> How about you just stop trying to do that, because it's a bad idea, and let email continue to be plain text...?

I don't want a web app delivered to my inbox, ever.</comment>


PostgreSQL Stored Procs Finally Supported in a Distributed SQL Database - <AUTHOR> https://blog.yugabyte.com/yugabyte-db-engineering-update-june-27-2019/ <comment><USER2> Didn't (postgres-compatible MPP) Amazon Redshift just add this also? Or is this more sophisticated?

<comment><USER3> Yes, we did. [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/dg/stored- proced...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/dg/stored-procedure- create.html)</comment></comment>


The Need for a Tax on Financial Trading - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/opinion/the-need-for-a-tax-on-financial-trading.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region <comment><USER2> Because barriers to trade have worked so great in the past...

This is just another fluff piece without too many rational arguments, based on a completely irrational fear of HFT. Arguably, HFT and hedge fund have made the markets much more micro-efficient in the past decades (as wittnessed by the difficulty of finding new arbitrage opportunities); we have to thank the central banks and big institutional investors for macro-inefficiency.

> one that applies a tiny tax rate to an array of transactions and is split > between buyers and sellers

I think the current situation, where exchanges basically "tax" those who take liquidity and reward those who provide it (i.e. the fee of a market order is split between the exchange and the person who entered the limit order) is much better at providing stability to the market.

> which generate windfall profits on small and fleeting differences in prices > at the expense of ordinary investors and market stability

Well, the idea behind is that prices (e.g. same stock on different markets) should converge. If you don't want that, by all means, tax the market.

> The burden of this tax would be concentrated at the top, because that's > where the ownership of financial assets is concentrated

Nope, it doesn't matter where _ownership_ is concentrated. What matters is where _trading_ is concentrated. E.g. HFT or every time you get paid and invest a portion in your income in a stock index-backed pension scheme.

<comment><USER3> I think the worry about HFT is mainly that the value to society of adding liquidity does not outweight the cost of the money being extracted by these companies. It doesn't feel like a good deal- it feels like we're all being cheated.

The hard part about analysing whether is actually is good is in trying to figure out just what value we should place on added liquidity.

Can you explain why the value to society of the additional liquidity from HFT outweighs the cost (large profits to companies doing nothing else)? Not being facetious, actually interested in hearing your thoughts on it.

<comment><USER4> Except that even the Fed now admits that HFT's only add liquidity precisely when it's least beneficial (when nobody needs it) and reduces it when it's needed.

Don't buy into the HFT "adding liquidity" myth.

<comment><USER5> Yep. At risk of adding a "this" comment I've spent years reading on the subject, talking to some of our customers who are HFT, and generally just thinking and learning about it.

I still can't figured out a single value-add they bring to the table, much less to justify their insane compensation or the incredible technology budgets they carry. It's simply sad to me to see some of these brilliant minds (at least on the tech side where I interact) essentially engaged in ripping off fellow citizens at worst and rent-seeking at best.

Of course if you engage them, they will get all hand-wavy about "liquidity" \- but I think it's striking that not a single person I've talked to has been able to distill the benefit they bring to society in a simple sentence or paragraph. It always ends with the "most people can't understand" which as I get older I've learned is a euphemism for either "I don't know" or "I don't want to tell you the truth".

Either way, so many billions of dollars taken from the economy and put into useless activity. Absolutely no one will be able to convince me we need millisecond-level liquidity for markets to function efficiently.

<comment><USER2> HFT don't provide liquidity for liquidity's sake. They make markets more efficient, i.e. closer to the "one true price" (not necessarily the fair price, because there's no way HFTs can outbid all the money collected in index/sovereign founds or printed by central banks). They also reduce the spreads. For an ordinary person, they improve the markets.

The complaint about "brilliant minds being wasted" rings true, but you could make the same complaint about all of finance, and even most of Silicon Valley focused on extracting rents by serving ads - both are ultimately zero-sum games where insiders profit at the loss of society.

I think the ultimate problem is, there are no _real_ problems that smart people could work on and make a contribution (and earn a good living) - or at least I don't see any.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's not hard to see who benefits from these taxes. You avoid the tax by trading a swap/CFD/forward (outside the U.S., if necessary). This means that your market maker is a bank instead of an HFT firm. More of the order flow becomes internalized so there's less incentive to post competitive quotes on public exchanges. I think it's very telling that many of the articles talk about the evils of HFT without addressing internalization.

It's true that this type of tax can easily be avoided, but the real problem is that it incentivizes trading to move from public exchanges to banks' walled gardens.

<comment><USER7> This is true. I'm consistently amused at how the transaction tax gets advertised with "BANKS HATE THIS," when banks would love it. And when banks love something, you better believe that it's not in anyone else's best interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have trouble believing this assertion from the NYT:

"[HFT] generate windfall profits on small and fleeting differences in prices at the expense of ordinary investors and market stability"

Considering this fact:

"TABB Group estimates that US equity HFT revenues have declined from approximately $7.2 billion in 2009 to about $1.3 billion in 2014."

Source: [https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43608.pdf](https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43608.pdf)

So the profit of the entire industry is a rounding error, but they're somehow fleecing everyone? And they provide tiny spreads, which clearly benefits individual investors.

The NYT article says a FTT is necessary to protect from HFT, but they don't really have evidence of that. The study they link makes the case that a FTT would raise lots of revenue without distorting trading too badly, but admits that the effect on market volatility is unclear. But raising taxes so that the government makes more money is not going to be as good a slogan as raising them to punish some hyped-up evil doer.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a stupid way to get a progressive tax system. If you want a progressive tax system just do it and don't mess around with complicated schemes to avoid the political consequences of it. Tax the wealthy at 60-70% and everyone else at 30-40% and provide decent social services and be done with it.

<comment><USER10> ...and a huge bureaucracy so that we can be certain that the social services are decent (since we won't be able to gauge efficiency or utility by supply and demand market pricing)...then huge organized labor and pensioning systems to attract and vest people into a system...

Since we already have these last two, then taxing the wealthy seems like a good way to go, except that you need to expand the concept of wealthy to actually make enough money; all the while the "wealthy" will find ways to protect their wealth.

It might be easier to simply print more money and give it to government agencies, but then other nations will probably value your currency less due to inflationary bloat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The trading tax has been hanging over the heads of traders for a long time now. I almost wish they would just create a proper experiment to test it and then repeal it after it inevitably fails (see Sweden for a prime example).

The SEC seems to enjoy "experiments" \- the large tick pilot (testing variations on requiring some small cap stocks to trade in increments larger than a penny) is an example of a massive upcoming one. While the large tick pilot suffers from many things - a huge cost to brokers for a dubiously structured experiment - at least it shows a willingness for the SEC to attempt structured experiments. This should be no different.

P.S. For those interested in Sweden - a report considering a transaction tax in Canada that discusses it: [http://www.publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection-R/LoPBd...](http://www.publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp419-e.htm)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's interesting people always cite the UK's stamp duty on share transactions as an example for how to stop high frequency trading. The rate is 0.5% when buying and 0% when selling. Market makers (of which high frequency traders are a subset) do not pay this.

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/16/section/97](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/16/section/97)

Edited extract:

"Stamp duty shall not be chargeable on an instrument transferring stock of a particular kind on sale to a person or his nominee if— (a)the person is a member of an exchange (b)the person is an intermediary"

"an intermediary is a person who carries on a bona fide business of dealing in stock and does not carry on an excluded business"

</comment><comment><USER13> > However, individuals who buy and hold investments, including those who > invest in index funds that trade infrequently

Wait, how is that possible? Are the underlying trades that make up the index not taxed? Do the funds receive some sort exemption? If so, how do I become an entity like that?

Seems to me that as an "average" investor I'm going to get taxed 3 times now. The underlying index trades, my own entry and exit from the index and on the gains from the trade (hopefully). Wouldn't it be simpler to just tax the gains as we do now at a higher rate?

[Later] On second thought this is even worse for folks like me (whether I count as "average" or not I don't know). Most of my trading portfolio exists in the form of index funds in tax deferred accounts. My long hold of those index funds now acts as a back door for lots of taxation that is less obvious.

<comment><USER14> The difference is that individual investors will often hold on to their shares for months or years, rendering the trading tax insignificant.

The tax is targeting (very) short-term professional traders, selling and buying back shares multiple times a day (or per second, in some cases). This type of trading adds little value to the useful allocation of capital, and imposes a 'tax' on other traders.

To me, that sounds like as good a thing to tax as any. Besides, I'd guess that implementation of such a tax would be relatively straightforward, as far as taxes go.

<comment><USER13> Except if I'm "holding" an index I'm not really holding anything. An index is made up of lots of trades over time.

I'm dubious about every part of your argument, but even if I weren't it still doesn't hold that long term index "investors" aren't impacted by this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> i never quite understood, why they dropped it. The financial industry claims they produce products, so when buying selling them sales tax applies. For me as private investor (in germany) the tax added up to something like 2DM per year.

</comment><comment><USER16> FTT's are bad. There are no models which show that they generate any revenue having been extensively researched in both the EU and UK. The basic rule is that the more you tax something the less of it occurs. FTT's are not only extremely expensive taxes to administer they also reduce overall economic activity and have been overturned everywhere they have been tried.

</comment><comment><USER17> also ex high speed trading supercomputers for sale

<comment><USER18> Except most expensive trading stuff is ASICS and microwave links and low latency switches and stuff... not that many trading strategies need the supercomputer to run, as the math is pretty simple.</comment></comment>


If you think Panama is bad, wait until you hear about Delaware - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/656998/if-you-think-panama-is-bad-wait-until-you-hear-about-delaware/ <comment><USER2> This makes the assumption that secrecy is 'bad.' Tax evasion is illegal; secrecy is not.

On another note, nearly all of Silicon Valley uses Delaware corporations and it isn't about secrecy inasmuch as its about legal protection and lower costs. Anyone even remotely interested in using Stripe Atlas is participating in using the advantages of Delaware.

Delaware has a minimum franchise tax of $250; California's is a minimum of $800.

Delaware also has a highly developed canon of corporate law precedents, so legal outcomes are far more predictable. You also have easier exits since in California, a majority of each share class is required to effect a corporate change, such as a merger, acquisition or IPO. So common stock holders could veto an exit even if preferred classes vote 100% for the exit. So one guy has one share of common stock and another guy has 50k shares of another class.. The common guy, with his one share could block an exit, since ÇA law requires a majority of each share class.

If you want to reduce the attractiveness of Delaware, increase the attractiveness of the alternatives, lower fees, lower taxes, increase predictability in legal outcomes and become more 'friendly' to corporations. It would be interesting to see how many Valley startups would stay in CA if they were forced to incorporate in CA. I would suspect that Vegas would become the new San Jose.</comment>


Social Network Marketing Meets Small Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/biztools/article.php/3828291

<comment><AUTHOR> Look mom/wife/mother-in-law we are in the news!

<comment><USER2> Why the gender bias? Even women seem to start these small businesses that just happen to be helping the economy.

Honestly, I'd much rather hear stories of off-beat small businesses getting value from technology than yet another twitter app startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> my apologies for the gender bias, its just that right before i posted the link i sent an email to my wife, mom and mother-in-law to let them know about the article.

Also the article is about some off beat small business using social media to market themselves.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Faceamish - A social network for Amish people. - <AUTHOR> http://faceamish.com

<comment><USER2> I knew that source code looked familiar. Did you literally just swipe Facebook's html, and stick a new logo on it and replace some text?

Most of your links just 404 -- that's what you did, isn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Look at you, Jedi master! 5 brownie points!

<comment><USER2> It's not even that funny!

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is getting sued part of your marketing plan?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've actually acquired 5 patents for Faceamish! We're not going anywhere!!1 ;-)

<comment><USER3> Ah good. Then maybe in 100 years the Amish will be less resistant to computers. Nice attempt at a joke I guess.</comment></comment></comment>


The transition to Ember 2.0 in detail - <AUTHOR> http://emberjs.com/blog/2015/05/10/run-up-to-two-oh.html

<comment><USER2> EmberJS renderer is so fast as React JS... Amazing and wow! Congratulation! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o12-90Dm- Qs&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o12-90Dm- Qs&feature=youtu.be&t=55m55s)</comment>


If your web site offers live chat, be prepared for hackers - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/23/if-your-web-site-offers-live-chat-be-prepared-for-hackers/ <comment><USER2> Author here (matt) -- would be interested in hearing if other companies have had issues with attacks on their live chat or support services.

I found this article about Amazon really interesting: [https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-customer-service- backd...](https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-customer-service-backdoor- be375b3428c4#.th4jg8yvf)</comment>


Superlinear cities - <AUTHOR> http://blog.longnow.org/2011/07/26/geoffrey-b-west-%E2%80%9Cwhy-cities-keep-on-growing-corporations-always-die-and-life-gets-faster%E2%80%9D/

<comment><USER2> "Cities routinely survive even nuclear bombs" - I pretty much stopped reading at that point. They might have survived them, but really not _routinely_.

Seems the web is slowly turning into a giant tabloid. Or at least USA Today.

</comment><comment><USER3> "If you plot their metabolic rate against their mass on a log-log graph, you get an absolutely straight line"

Anything in a log-log plot is a straight line!

"Currently [cities] are growing exponentially. Every week from now until 2050, one million new people are being added to our cities."

That's linear, not exponential.</comment>


Autonomous Delivery Robots Begin Testing in Dallas - <AUTHOR> https://yellrobot.com/autonomous-delivery-robots-begin-testing-in-dallas/ <comment><USER2> This is a direct competitor for starship?</comment>


Is ASP.NET Core Now a Mature Platform? - <AUTHOR> https://rehansaeed.com/is-asp-net-core-now-a-mature-platform/ <comment><USER2> Using it for two days now on OSX for a client so I don't have much experience with it. First impressions are ok, the documentation could be better and it's not very googleable as you get a lot of irrelevant hits from normal .NET, MS really should have more creativity when it comes to naming. Problems I've hit which I wouldn't expect to hit in a more mature framework:

* Running EF Core migrations against postgres on startup. I wasn't able to google a solution to this. I hacked around this by deploying an init container with a migrate.sql script but I expect that'll bring me problems later on.

* Let's Encrypt. Found an archived package on GitHub, I expected more maturity.

* Not very easy to ascertain the state of the setup, things need to be registered in a certain order for them to work (UseDefaultFiles & UseStaticFiles f.i.). This would be made easier by me having more experience with the stack or better docs, still a waste of time.

<comment><USER3> You can use FluentMigrator package for database migration. We have used it and it is pretty solid.

[https://github.com/fluentmigrator/fluentmigrator/issues](https://github.com/fluentmigrator/fluentmigrator/issues)

I am curious about your encrytion scenario and why did .Net core fall short.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the tip, does FluentMigrator require me to duplicate the table structure in it's DSL or does it have a way to pick up EF Core tables & detect changes?

Re encryption, I was looking for a way to do automatic TLS via [https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/). Closest I could find was [https://github.com/natemcmaster/LetsEncrypt](https://github.com/natemcmaster/LetsEncrypt) which is archived.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately it does not detect DSL changes automatically so yes you will have to copy changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, Bing runs on Asp.Net Core: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/08/20/bing- com-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/08/20/bing-com-runs-on- net-core-2-1/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been developing ASP.NET Core website for 1 year. Now my website runs on production. It is easy to customize, fast and reliable platform. Microsoft makes a lot of efforts to add new features to it. So I definitely advise to use ASP.NET Core.

</comment><comment><USER6> We run the core of our order system on dotnet core, including (somewhat) micro-service architecture behind the scenes. Build on primarily windows desktops, and hosted on Linux containers. Works well for us; there are a few things we needed to roll ourselves, but by and large it works out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3OI6s-...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3OI6s-GBQPwJ:https://rehansaeed.com/is- asp-net-core-now-a-mature- platform/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=sg&client=firefox-b)

Google cache cos it appears the site is down at the moment :(

</comment><comment><USER8> Third party support bugs me for .Net Core but otherwise it has been amazing. For example, I had some problems using it with Firebase and other than SignalR there doesn't seem to be another websockets library present.

I mainly develop on Ubuntu using VS Code & Docker.

</comment><comment><USER9> Are there any open source projects that are representing all features, like an admin panel with an API? As someone coming from Java and Rails, I can learn it with just reading the code.

<comment><USER10> You can check the tutorials here, [https://www.asp.net/](https://www.asp.net/)

<comment><USER9> Tell me if I'm wrong but examples are fine if I'm building Hello World. I expect an example with at least 10 classes with full featured login. :)

<comment><USER10> Had you followed up the links and you would eventually land in one of these code paths.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/aspnet/core/?view=aspnetcor...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/aspnet/core/?view=aspnetcore-2.2)

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/aspnet/tutorials](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/tutorials)

Both of which provide more depth than just "Hello World".

And some free trainings where you can create as many classes as you wish.

[https://www.asp.net/freecourses](https://www.asp.net/freecourses)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm running it in production on pretty large website for about 6 months now, no issues so far. Performs very fast as well.

Also, I develop on MacOS using VS Code most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is ASP.NET Core platform popular among developers who use non-Windows platform? Can we develop applications on top of ASP.NET without Visual Studio?

<comment><USER13> As someone who has been using Linux as my daily driver for over a decade, and is now using .NET Core at dayjob, Rider is FANTASTIC. The latest EAP (early access program) which is about to be released is very, very nice. Absolutely amazing. They are the company behind resharper, which is very popular.

Can't stand Windows, and Visual Studio is pretty terrible as well (IMHO), it always freezes on my beefy hardware (32 core threadripper, oodles of RAM, NVME, etc).

<comment><USER14> > it always freezes

FWIW, VS freezes for me come mostly from Resharper. I'm still debating whether the small productivity gain is worth it. Pretty much the only thing I'm really missing without Resharper is the smart completion which VS doesn't do well on its own.

It's kinda funny, though, how Jetbrains touts Rider's performance because the Resharper engine runs in a separate process. Something that Microsoft has recommended VS extensions that do a lot of hefty processing to do since VS 2008 ...

<comment><USER15> We gave up on ReSharper a couple of months into using it. It's an amazing tool but the performance hit on VS just isn't worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The main pain points for me regarding .NET Core has been the lack of third party libraries, hard to understand sometimes which project can run on .NET Core and several cases that I had to switch back for smaller projects in order to use a specific library.

.NET Core is great, but I would continue to run it on .NET Framework for now.

<comment><USER17> Most of the key Nuget packages we regularly use do target .NetStandard, so can be used in .Net Core:

\- Autofac \- Automapper \- EntityFramework Core \- MassTransit \- MediatR \- Moq \- Newtonsoft.Json \- NodaTime \- NUnit \- Quartz.Net \- RabbitMq.Client \- RestSharp \- Serilog

The only thing we use .NET Framework applications for is Windows services through our use of TopShelf since it does all the heavy lifting surrounding windows service's lifetime management. All our other apps are .NET Core though.

We build a lot of CQRS / DDD style applications, and the above list covers us off pretty well for our architecture that uses RabbitMq for messaging.

Would be interested to know which packages you are missing?

<comment><USER10> On my case, ODP.NET is the big show stopper.

So far, Oracle only bothered to port a subset to their .NET Core managed driver.

However there are some features like UDT, distributed transactions and specific cipher modes that are only available on the native driver.

Due to this, I have already done a .NET => Java port of a server application, because the customer required migration to UNIX servers and the JDBC driver had 100% feature parity with what we required.

Switching to other RDMS is not an option on Oracle heavy enterprise shops, it has plenty of nice features at scale and UI tooling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I also use asp.net core both for personal project and company product. It works great especially with f# and giraffe. But in company we use oracle, the devart.data.oracle.efcore is not very good, actually a little bad.

</comment><comment><USER19> I find it striking how many of the blind spots wrt the web have been a feature of ASP.NET since the beginning: static file serving, caching, authorisation...

<comment><USER20> If you're saying these things are "missing" from aspnet core then yes -- it's by design. All of this is handled through middleware, the same as in NodeJS. You can very easily create aspnet core projects with all of the above but MSFT isn't making overly dogmatic opinions about how you should do each of those things or even that you _need_ to use their solutions for each.

<comment><USER19> They've literally just launched a library that adds conventions to Swashbuckle. Not saying it's not useful, just that serving static files probably ought to be higher on their priority list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The whole environment handling bothers me, specially when working with containers. Why can't we have something normal like a .env?

<comment><USER22> There's a couple dotenv nuget packages...

        using DotEnv = dotenv.net.DotEnv;

But I wish the usage for the default load scenario was better. Here's how I'm using it.

            public static void Init()
            {
                var levelsToCheck = 4;
                var currentDirectory = new DirectoryInfo(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory());

                for (; currentDirectory != null && levelsToCheck > 0; levelsToCheck--, currentDirectory = currentDirectory.Parent)
                {
                    foreach (var fi in currentDirectory.GetFiles(".env", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly))
                    {
                        DotEnv.Config(false, fi.FullName);
                        return; // found .env file
                    }
                };
            }

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It is already for a year or so. We have not met any limitations (for our use cases) there.

</comment><comment><USER24> what are some other problems with ASP.NET core for now?

<comment><USER25> I feel like Kestrel could be better. I've hit some issues in production (on Linux) there is no other choice.

<comment><USER26> What issue did you it? I'm quite interested as we're looking into using asp.net core on Linux too.

<comment><USER27> I run production on Linux - it's been great. No problems and such a nicer experience than say nodejs thanks to strong typing, great debugging and integration tests.

The only negative things I hear is when people assume it is meant to be internet facing and looking for out of the box load balancing or some such. For it's intended purpose behind a reverse proxy like nginx, I've had zero issues or missing features.

<comment><USER24> Which framework manages load balancing?

I've used flask, django, rails..and even Gorilla (go) none has loadbalancer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am missing Rails feature in ASP.NET Core.

</comment><comment><USER24> One cold harsh truth is that Asp.net core is nowhere close to node, python or django when it comes to libaries.

It's growing but not that fast.

C# is very verbose compared to Ruby. You'll find it hard to get Rails level of productivity with Asp.net core.

Why? Because there is no sidekick, actionmailer, or asset piplining, turbolinks.

Stuff like, "has many, through" (Rails) relationship isn't supported in entity framework. If you plan to use postgres, you'll run into many issues.

You end up dealing with ugly DbContext for setting up basic models. And DbSets to enable tables for your models. All this ugly stuff is thrown in your face.

There are no tutorials on how to add Vuejs or React to your asp.net core project.

Postgres is simply treated as "not important" and you are expected to use mssql.

PostGres + Entity Framework Core is mostly a hack. You run into soo many issues that you'll be forced to leave Postgres and go for mssql.

Need image processing libaries? Good luck with that. There is simply no support.

The only thing you've going for you is, static typing and cool IDE support.

I tried asp.net core for several months and went back to Rails.

Lookup ActiveMerchant and how many payment gateways it support, there is nothing like that in Asp.net core.

Don't get me wrong everything is possible in asp.net core but you'll have to hack together your own solution, there is no standard way of doing things like there is in Rails.

There is a very good reference project: Discource if you want to see the potential of Rails.

Where can i find reference project for asp.net core? There are no good books either.

Only tutorials available teach basic stuff like middleware, rest api without authentication.

Heck all that can be done in Flask in 10 lines.

<comment> jf- I'll be blunt, you don't know how to use .NET core and you never learned, despite your claimed "several months" of use.

> There are no tutorials on how to add Vuejs or React to your asp.net core > project.

This is a remarkable complaint to make. There are literally template starter projects for react/angular when you go to file -> new project. If you choose not to use a starter template, adding your own frontend is trivial: place the built frontend in wwwroot and have an MVC endpoint that returns index.html. I'm not sure how this could be any easier, and it makes me wonder if you ever used .NET core at all.

> Postgres is simply treated as "not important" and you are expected to use > mssql. PostGres + Entity Framework Core is mostly a hack. You run into soo > many issues that you'll be forced to leave Postgres and go for mssql.

This is simply false. I have used Postgres with .NET core extensively and have never been forced to fall back on SQL server. Exactly what are these serious issues?

> Only tutorials available teach basic stuff like middleware, rest api without > authentication.

Are you complaining about setting up authentication? It is easy to add JWT support in startup.cs and then secure endpoints via attributes.

> You end up dealing with ugly DbContext for setting up basic models. And > DbSets to enable tables for your models. All this ugly stuff is thrown in > your face.

What's ugly about it? The DbContext represents a particular database connection and a DbSet represents an entity within that database. That's an entirely rational way to represent the data layer.

> Need image processing libaries? Good luck with that. There is simply no > support.

Another remarkable complaint to make. Nothing apart from OpenCV, ImageSharp, the native System.Drawing package, and this entire list of options: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2017/01/19/net- core-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2017/01/19/net-core-image- processing/)

You should really stop making claims about .NET core that are demonstrably false.

<comment><USER5> I use Magick.Net with ASP.NET Core 2.2 [https://github.com/dlemstra/Magick.NET](https://github.com/dlemstra/Magick.NET) It is a popular and well known image processing lib.</comment></comment></comment>


WorkLife (YC W15) launches to end bad meetings - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/11/worklife-better-meetings/

<comment><USER2> Great idea. There are few things more frustrating in business than unproductive meetings, and so often they could easily be fixed with better preparation, focus during the meeting itself, and/or follow-up. This seems like the kind of tool that could genuinely help and could pay for itself very quickly while still generating plenty of returns for you.

I have two hopefully constructive and slightly meta suggestions:

1\. Your tour page could benefit from some TLC. I looked at it on a large monitor, and it was so spaced out and the text so large and poorly rendered that it was actively unpleasant to read through. I'm happy to give more specific feedback if it would be useful. (I've just realised that despite being interested in your project and having reached the end of that page, in the time it took to write this comment I have already forgotten almost everything it said except for a couple of features I guessed would be there anyway.)

2\. You're writing a tool where business people are presumably going to discuss work, potentially including all kinds of sensitive information about current status and future plans. I lost track of how many deal-breakers your current privacy policy contains in that context, but it was lots.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, Chris.

<comment><USER2> You're welcome. Best of luck with the project, I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dave Kashen, co-founder here. Happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER3> What integrations are you working on? I could see this being very useful with an Asana integration.

<comment><AUTHOR> Asana integration is on our roadmap, along with a number of others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are a number of integrated strategies that can support meetings to either be more productive or not run at all (one of the big newspapers here in Australia actually called me a meeting olympian for the sheer amount I've worked with [1]). A clear Agenda at the outset is by far the biggest bang for buck - in part, because it requires a system not specialised skills (like, say, energy curve management).

Good luck to Dave and the team. Let me know if I can help with guest blogs etc.

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/managing/supercharge- yo...](http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/managing/supercharge-your- meetings-20140528-38bns.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jacob, will do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Site: [https://www.worklife.com/](https://www.worklife.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Great problem to tackle. Meetings aren't going away, and they can be improved.

Two questions for the founder:

\- How much of this is process vs the tool itself? (How much is this an improvement over Shared Google docs?)

\- The company name isn't MeetingLife. What's next on the agenda?

<comment><AUTHOR> \- We think the tool can shape the process. We're hearing from teams that use it that meetings that used to have no agendas now have agendas consistently, meetings that used to go in circles now stay focused and end with clear next steps, etc.

\- There's plenty to do to fix meetings (and doing so will help improve people's work life), so that will be our focus for the foreseeable future. Funny enough, we did change the name from MeetingHero, we felt WorkLife was more in line with our fundamental purpose and long term aspiration.

<comment><USER6> MeetingHero has a ring to it, but I suspect it would wind up with too many Snarky connotations to the person who introduces the software.

What's the big benefit above and beyond using Google Docs?

Again, I'm a big fan of the concept, as fixing Poorly Run Meetings is a solvable problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love this! Tracking deliverables from meetings is challenging. Would love to see an "Old Business" list of deliverables (action items) from the prior meeting in a series (e.g. weekly one-on-ones with direct report)

</comment><comment><USER8> I just tried it out. Its very slick, how ever I assigned action item to myself and under action items nothing showed up.

Also the meeting summary was never generated. At least I thought it would be.

Hope this helps

<comment><AUTHOR> The action items show up for past meetings, so if you were just playing around and added it to a future meeting, it will show up once it's in the past. You have to click Send Meeting Summary, and it will send it out by email. If you're still having issues, pls email me dave AT worklife

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great work here. Is this primarily focused on physical meetings, or is it in any way also optimized for remote/teleconference meetings?

</comment><comment><USER10> Dave is incredibly skilled and capable. Looking forward to seeing where the business goes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man, you're too kind.</comment></comment>


The Talented Ms. Hornstein: How Shirls Fooled The Valley - <AUTHOR> http://m.techcrunch.com/2012/08/28/talented-shirley-hornstein/?icid=tc_home_art&

<comment><USER2> Previous submission of canonical URL, now on front page with multiple comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4446662></comment>


Gauss Machine Gun (Rate of Fire: 7.7 Rounds/Sec Muzzle Velocity: 42.03m/s) - <AUTHOR> http://www.deltaveng.com/gauss-machine-gun/

<comment><USER2> So folks who are concerned about people "printing" guns that use regular ammo should be much more concerned about this sort of thing. So you 3D print an AR-15 you are out of luck if the .223 ammunition is taken off the market. Here all you need is a wall outlet and steel slugs.

These guys use actual ballistic steel slugs but one could just as easily buy steel rod and cut it into slugs.

Granted it is 2% the muzzle energy of a 45 ACP (500 joules vs 10 joules) But it is definitely going to leave a mark if you run into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> it is now 2%. but it already looks quite scary</comment></comment>


Do highly skilled migrants return permanently to their home countries? - <AUTHOR> http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5925

<comment><USER2> There's often times a hidden variable in the decision to return home - in my case it involved nice curves and brown eyes.

I'm a Kiwi and many of us head off overseas in our early twenties, usually with the intention of returning home in a few years. This 'Big OE' though is mostly because people want to see the world rather than because they want to move somewhere to improve their quality of life. So that's part of the explanation for the difference the study sees between migration between Western migrants and those from Asian regions say.

On their travels some people meet a pretty girl / handsome guy and so sometimes the new partner returns to New Zealand too and sometimes the Kiwi ends up staying in the new partners country. The decision in these cases is more a personal one than to do with any specific countries advantages / disadvantages.

<comment><USER3> Ah yes, the famed NZ man drought.

My girlfriend's also Kiwi, but like a lot of Kiwi's we'll be looking to return to Australia for a while after Europe. Better weather and more to do.

Our homeland seems to be the place to return to raise the kids, however. I think that's a major driver of Kiwi's returning home to Godzone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sure, not many skilled migrants return to their home countries, but this doesn't mean that they're not helping their home countries! They're still forming the sorts of international ties needed to provide opportunities for the home country. For example, by providing contacts and funds for starting companies in the home country, or collaborative research, etc. So it's not very clear to me that the feared "brain drain" is necessarily a "drain" -- in fact, India's very awful-seeming brain drain seems to have started to pay off pretty handsomely in the last 20 years.

<comment><USER5> I would also note that a lot of those who leave, send money back home which should enable education for their family members and healthier, more productive lives. I've seen personally seen cases where migration has a positive economic effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I noticed that the migrants he was tracking were all "foreign faculty who had their first US faculty appointment after 1993". I would think that receiving a faculty appointment would be a relatively powerful reason to stay.

I do realize that those who get faculty appointments can be considered the "most successful" PhD graduates, and thus their return home would be more beneficial to their home country. However, I'd be interested if they numbers were significantly different for students that either received their PhD and went into industry, or immediately returned home.

</comment><comment><USER7> It'll be interesting to see how this data changes over the next 20 years given the current state of US politics.

</comment><comment><USER8> It is clear why only the best stay there. Everybody wants to have a feeling of accomplishment and success. And clearly with a "higher" countries education you are the elite of your own country, but in that country you might need some very excelent results and a lot of luck to just be considered normal. It is a tough fight uphill to survive in a higher developed country, far away from your family and culture and nobody interested in helping you.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's an interesting question and I don't feel that article really does it justice.

I also have no idea why you would lump different source countries together when the difference between moving from the US to Aus and moving from India to Aus is so great.

In addition this is a question where the answer itself changes with time. Is there even any point looking at the current situation if the variability over time is very large.

</comment><comment><USER10> I was listening to Dan Ariely's podcast a while back and one of the topics was on the hidden benefit of brain drains.

The theory goes like this. Only a few highly educated people have the opportunity to emigrate, say 1 out of 10 college graduates. But the benefit of emigrating is so huge, improving well being by 10x or 20x, more people will still pursue higher education even though they may not actually have the chance to emigrate.

So although 1 out of 10 top people end up leaving for the United States or Europe, the developing nation will still net gain the 9 out of 10 educated people that couldn't emigrate who will help improve the nation overall.</comment>